wow, I've been very philosophical of late. Well, anyway...

Is there a right and wrong? A moral code that ALL human beings should abide by? Is it relative? What is it for you?
I think that the UN got it bang on with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Now if they would just DO more about it...)

1) All Human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights...and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
2) Everyone, no matter what thier race, colour, sex, language, religeon, political belief, or status is entitled to all the rights and freedoms in this declaration.
3) Everyone has theb right to life, liberty, and personal security.
4) No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.
5) No one shall be tortured or subject to creul, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
6) Everyone, no matter where they are, has the right to be recognized as a person by the law.
7) Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal legal protection, without discrimination.
8) Everyone has the right to seek legal help if his or her human rights are violated.
9) No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile without due legal process.
10) Everyone charged with a crime is entitled to a fair trial by an independant court.
11) Everyone charged with a crime is entitled to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
12) No one should be subjected to interference with his or her privacy, family home, or correspondence.
13) Everyone has the right to live where they want and move freely within thier own country.Everyone has the right to leave and return his or her country.
14) Everyone has the right to seek asylum in another country if they are being persecuted. This does not apply if someone has been charged with a crime such as murder, or anything that conflicts with the spirit of the United Nations.
15) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
16) Men and women have the right to marry and start a family. The family is entitled to be protected by society.
17) Everyone has the right to own property and the right not to be deprived of his or her property.
18) Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religeon.
19) Everyone has the right to freedom of thought and speech.
20) Everyone has the right to peaceful assembly and association.
21) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his or her country, directly or through representatives, i.e. the right to vote and elect representatives. [This is often defined as the right to democracy.]
22) Everyone has the right to economic, social and cultural security.
23) Everyone has the right to work; to equal pay for equal work; and the right to join a trade union.
24) Everyone has the right to rest, leisure, and holidays.
25) Everyone has the to an adequate standard of living.
26) Everyone has the right to an education. Parents are entitled to choose education for thier children.
27) Everyone has the right to take part in the cultural life of his or community.
28) Everyone is entitled to live in a situation where the rights and freedoms of this Declaration can be realized.
29) Everyone has a duty to serve and support his or her community. An individuals rights can be limited in order to prtoect the rights and freedoms of others.
30) No one should act in any way that will damage the rights and freedoms of another person.

Sounds about right to me. I think that these Basic human rights should be followed to the letter. Without any 'exceptions'. Which is why I am both outraged and disgusted with the actions of countries around the world. Including Aus (with terrorism and illegal immigrants) and US (Guantanomo Bay and other 'tortures by proxy'). In my eyes, New Zealand is one of the few cool countires that come close to perfect (pleez don't rub it in Kragura and other kiwis).

I would like to hear you're thoughts on Right and Wrong. Justice and Injustice. Good and evil.

I look forward to your posts...

Right and wrong are points of view, as are good and evil and justice.

There are 2 points in that post that support abortion, and 2 that would prevent it, for example. It is all very well giving people "rights", but one persons' right may infringe on anothers rights and so only by limiting how people can fulfil their rights can can other people enjoy theirs.

The classic example is the right to freedom of speach as it applies to racism and the freedom of people to live without people shouting that they are the wrong colour.

Another example is the "rule" of law. As long as enough people believe that the police are in charge, they remain in charge. However, as soon as enough people believe that the police are not in charge, there is absolutely nothing they can do about it, the dream of law will have shattered.

I'm a big advocate of 29, especially when spelled correctly.
Australia doesn't exactly have what other developed countries might know as a 'bill of human rights' or similar.

Please find a link below to one of my favourite sites, for purely satirical pleasure on my part. I'm still not conviced that the HREOC isn't a very complex government joke.
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/

BTW, EF, the title of this thread is slightly irrelevant. 'Rights', 'Right' and 'Right and Wrong' as opposites are all vastly different things.

29 just means that "the people in charge" can take away all your rights without a problem or argument just because they say so.

Person: "What do you mean you are taking all my stuff, shooting my dog and throwing me in a hole for the rest of my life?"
Government: "Well, we have determined that in order to 'protect the rights' of MP's, we are having everyone that we don't like stripped of their rights and thrown into a hole and there is nothing you can do about it because you have no rights, and we have rule 29!".

Emperors Faithful wrote:
16) Men and women have the right to marry and start a family. The family is entitled to be protected by society.
29) Everyone has a duty to serve and support his or her community. An individuals rights can be limited in order to prtoect the rights and freedoms of others.
30) No one should act in any way that will damage the rights and freedoms of another person.

I disagree with these.
Same sex couples have the same rights as Hetero couples. The wording should be changed to "Every couple has the right to...."

I am under no obligations to support my community, and a right that can be limited is not a right but a privilege.

And number 3 contradicts number 29, prison, the death penalty, etc deny people their rights.

What about family groupings that are not "couples" such as a large number of Islamic families where there is 1 husband and up to 4 wives?

Or indeed any group family, with multiple "husbands" and "wives" (although often not "legally" married).

And so we get to the problem with rights... sooner or later you begin to have them spiral out of control so that they are so complex and convoluted that they no longer mean anything and are totaly worthless.

And you will always find someone who falls outside them as well.

You're right. They should certainly have the right to be classified as a family for the purpose of human rights.

29) Everyone has a duty to serve and support his or her community. An individuals rights can be limited in order to prtoect the rights and freedoms of others.

SilverMK2 wrote:29 just means that "the people in charge" can take away all your rights without a problem or argument just because they say so.

Person: "What do you mean you are taking all my stuff, shooting my dog and throwing me in a hole for the rest of my life?"
Government: "Well, we have determined that in order to 'protect the rights' of MP's, we are having everyone that we don't like stripped of their rights and thrown into a hole and there is nothing you can do about it because you have no rights, and we have rule 29!".

I disagree, and I think you take it out of perspective by involving authority. Obviously 'the rule of law', as was mentioned earlier, conflicts with the entirety of the Declaration. 'Arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile without due legal process' indeed.
I think that one should personally restrain themselves from infringing the rights of others to peacefully assemble, speak and practice their own culture, and if you are in a position of established authority that exceeds this basic position, then utmost humility should be practiced. Such authority surpasses the Declaration, and in turn, the Declaration implies that any such authority is excessive. I'm not saying that either, or any bill of rights, law or government constitution, is perfect for the settings in which they are imposed as an authorative measure.

I have the right to spit on the ground, but I would not spit at a person's feet in the society I know, because that would usually make a person feel uncomfortable, unwanted, ofeended, or any number of things. I work all week for many facets of society, hospitals, police, ranndom people in their homes and at work, but if I choose to drink all weekend, that's my call. It still isn't appropriate for me to go and drunkenly ramble to children in a park, vomit on sidewalks, and sing loudly just because I'm drunk, and I don't need to do any of those things to justify my right to drink. There is nothing fundamentally unnatural about saliva landing on the ground, people experiencing altered perception, or a book burning, but if you burn the wrong book in front of the wrong person you're going to opress someone. I'm a book-lover personally, and wouldn't stand for any such thing except in order to demonstrate that it is nothing but a book.

We are deeply societal creatures, ingrained with a undeniable natural greed that any animal or piece of matter with the power to do so will take advantage of in favourable situations. In order to be effectively societal, we need a clear understanding of what are the right situations to both support and take advantage of our surroundings. The Declaration in question is as flawed as any democratic paper, affected first by the majoritiy interest, secondly addressing those whom the majorities pity, and finally amended by anyone else who can get a word in edgewise. Local laws and authoritie, deliberately non-universal and tailored to the majority interests of the locality concerned, allow these broad and generally unworkable 'rights' to be practiced as best they can in their specific contexts. The broad aim of democracy is to protect society from the individual evils of you and me, but it doesn't work for everyone, and is bureaucratic and unwieldy in the face of radical social change at the best of times. I'm a socialist, and I think that socialism is supposed to be the point of all responsible government, but I would never vote for any socialist party I've read about or spoken to a member of.

Without 'rule 29', as you put it, the Declaration may as well be ignored, because we all have far more pressing personal concerns to attend to most of the time. With 'rule 29,' it can be applied and appreciated as neccesary, without regard for those whose aims are not in the interests of, or against, the community. I agree with what some other posters have said, about conflicting statements in the Declaration, and in particular number 16, which doesn't seem to have anything to do with human rights on a 'universal' scale - it is more exclusive than anything. I personally think that marriage is irrelevant exceot where it is an established social prerequisite to... rape, possession, whatever..., and as a person in a stable and long term relationship who personally does not believe in either marriage or civil union, I'm blind as to why anyone cares in the first place. That's just me, and part of the evil of my individuality. If I lived in a society where I was expected to take and support several wives, then that would be a reason. If I didn't want to I wouldn't, and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people thought I was a weirdo, or selfish, or an affront to society. I can still take pride in being a weirdo who plays Warhammer.

I could go on about this for a while... but I'm sure no one cares about what I'm saying as much as I do. That's kind of the whole point, opposed to the majority of Dakka users that won't even contribute to this thread. I feel confident enough in what I'm saying to say it, and if anyone is willing to argue, critique or agree with me, you're fulfilling my social expectations. Welcome to the thread... and to the OP, welcome to the internet. Your on-going self-affirmation is as sickening to me as it is clearly an important part of your mental and social development.


SilverMK2, do you have a better example of what you're trying to say there?

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29) Everyone has a duty to serve and support his or her community. An individuals rights can be limited in order to prtoect the rights and freedoms of others.

No, they don't. They do have the fundamental right to be left alone. Anything else is the sweet siren call of the dictator.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

25) Everyone has the to an adequate standard of living.

utopian nonsense

Calm down missy. Wide open spaces don't quite fit into the social norms of the cosmopolitan centres that most of the world's inhabitants... inhabit. I said it was imperfect. I don't think any more of hardline authority than I do of hard, self-serving work, and I've done a gakload of both in my lifetime. Don't get me started on merchants though...

'Dictatorship' in some form or another is unavoidable where people are given authority; in government, media, finance, security, or anywhere. People with stubborn ideas of how things should be done are the usual cases that worm their way into these positions, whether democratically or not. To clarify something I said earlier, I'm a socialist who would rather be a good socialist under a democracy, because at least things are interesting. One socialist does not a socialism make, nor is socialism fundamentally undemocratic, intrusive, or expectant of anything other than that people act civilly or unselfishly. If you want to be a public servant, then you're a servant, and that's your call. Me? I'm a contractor. Number 29 would be heavily reworded in my opinion, because like Number 16 and others, it makes the Declaration as a 'universal' pretty hard to swallow.

Anyone care to comment on 23? I'm not a fan of trade unions myself...

Just because you live in a city doesn't mean you don't have the right to be free from oppression.

Right and wrong, east and yellow, all words. It's how you act and treat others that defines whether you are "right or wrong".

George Carlin needs to say something about this...

Please disregard his references to religion and listen to what he is saying.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiBt-pqp0E

I give forewarning that some may be offended, thus I include this DO NOT LOOK CLAUSE!!!

I will reply to point 29 later when I have more time, but I will just say that in relation to 23, trade unions are both good and bad.

They have the potential to act on behalf of the individual worker against "the system" or the company, etc...

This is very important when you look at how things were before unions during the industrial revolution etc. Times were very different and laws were very different too (no or very lax child labour laws for example).

But then they can also be bad... during the 80s they caused a lot of trouble in the UK and even with the "support" of their members caused them, in both the short and long term, more harm than good. Especially all the coal miners, who went from wanting a bit more money and better rights and working conditions etc, to permanent strikes, violent protest, and eventually being out of work for good and the closure of the mines.

Admittedly, this was down to the government reaction as well as the action of the Trade Unions, but if the Union had been genuinely working for its members, it would have taken a longer view rather than being greedy and wanting everything then and there.

So yes, when a union works well, it can be a fantastic force for good of the "common worker", but if it goes bad, it can ruin an entire industry.

Our manufacturing industry has not been the same since the 80's and the rampant abuse of the unions against the government.

Frazzled wrote:Just because you live in a city doesn't mean you don't have the right to be free from oppression.

Are you going to explain that or are you just 'putting it out there'? I don't disagree with you, so I'd like to know where you're coming from.

My partner is Palestinian, and different bits of her family have been progressively shunted out of East Jerusalem for decades, to make way for Jewish settlers, often from Europe and America. I do actually try to be a bit small-mided with things like that... I mean, I obviously can't be as passionate about it, nor am I able to do anything but recognise it as 'wrong' from where I've been introduced to it. So what does actually stand up for these people? The Declaration does, for one thing. The Israeli constitution has already effectively revoked the right to a nationality from what they term as 'Israeli Arabs'... in fact, the Israel nationality law is a disturbing document overall.

Paramedics and ambulance drivers have been a big part of the union news in Aus recently. In Vistoria they've just rejected a $21p/h pay rise and stated that they will rush patients to hospital but will not stabilise them. "More patients may die but that will be on the government's head". Anyone want to Right or Wrong that one?

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Just because you live in a city doesn't mean you don't have the right to be free from oppression.

Are you going to explain that or are you just 'putting it out there'? I don't disagree with you, so I'd like to know where you're coming from.

Its a non-nuanced. People, and the reply, use the excuse of living in metropolitan conditions as an excuse for future oppression. My rights to freedom are not contingent on where I live. Its an excuse by one group to tell another group what to do, in this case "for the good fo the community," which ususally means for their good or how they feel you should live. Obviously with rights come responsibilities, but the statement itself is an excuse for oppression.

I don't get the relation of the second paragraph to the first so let that be.

These should all be right that all people get all their rights and equalization, and yet one of these are violated almost every second.

Frazzled wrote:

Arctik_Firangi wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Just because you live in a city doesn't mean you don't have the right to be free from oppression.

Are you going to explain that or are you just 'putting it out there'? I don't disagree with you, so I'd like to know where you're coming from.

Its a non-nuanced. People, and the reply, use the excuse of living in metropolitan conditions as an excuse for future oppression. My rights to freedom are not contingent on where I live. Its an excuse by one group to tell another group what to do, in this case "for the good fo the community," which ususally means for their good or how they feel you should live. Obviously with rights come responsibilities, but the statement itself is an excuse for oppression.

I don't get the relation of the second paragraph to the first so let that be.

The relevance of the second paragraph was that the interests of a very influential majority, promoting their utopian vision of a perfect community, are bulldozing Christian landowner's homes whether they've vacated them or not. The 'lack of space' is a big factor, and civility is just so much more important when dealing with feet rather than acres. Just a little bit of oppression going on there, thought I'd bring it up in the spirit of the thread if nothing else. Exaclty as I wrote, 29 and other lines of the Declaration concern the victims in this case, but do not stop the local authority's oppressive mandate.

I pretty much hate cities myself... I'd probably make more money, drive a hell of a lot less than I do, but pay way more rent. In my opinion the living conditions are terrible almost any way you look at it. My family moved to Australia's largest city, I moved to a different regional area. I'm flying down there for a family thing tomorrow, damnit. Heh heh. If I have a freedom in any respect, it is that I don't have to live in a place that I find to be actually oppressive. Freedom is protected, but is not really a recognised right, no matter what authorities have said. Their existence belies their words. I'd rather a little implied oppression than for everyone to think they can do whatever they want. I guess you pay more attention to the second half of 29? I can still do whatever I want in my home, or wherever I'm not conflict with other people's perceived rights or restrictions.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:I think you take it out of perspective by involving authority

I think that is the only context that it can realistically be taken in. After all, on day to day life, the majority of people remain civil to one another and by themselves do not limit or remove the rights of others. Most people don't even think about it. You just get on with life.

It is only when you add in power and authority that things really have the possibility of going very wrong, very quickly. After all, who decides what rights to limit, how much to limit them, and why they should be limited? As I mentioned above in this post (and as I believe you yourself commented upon), most people are usually just interested in getting on with things. Where I believe we differ on this point (at least I think we do, it was difficult to follow your post though parts) is that I believe the vast majority of people will act in a reasonably decent way towards one another most of the time without the need for artificial rules and rights.

The scary part comes in when what is when those who should be protecting the "rights" of the people suddenly turn round and alter or remove those rights for their own gain. Point 29 is written in such a way that it implies that not only can the rights of some (or all) be curtailed or even eliminated, it can be done for seemingly almost any reason.

For example, I could decide that your right to say that blue is a better colour than green is infringing on the rights of people who like green. Thus following the guidance of 29, I can limit your right to, say, being free from torture.

But as I have pointed out, it is quite difficult for the individual to do this. If I were to use a hot iron rod on you, I would most likley be arrested etc, because my interpretation of "the rights of man" differ from that of society. If, however, the government decided that it was in fact the case that green were better than blue, and that saying anything otherwise would be a crime, punishable by a barbed wire enema, it can be very difficult to halt this slippery slide into a totalitarian state.

SilverMK2, do you have a better example of what you're trying to say there?

Well, a historic example that cannot be refuted is that of Nazi Germany, which saw the rights of various groups of citizens gradually eroded until they were rounded up into camps and killed, worked to death and gradually treated horriffically. Now, this would never happen in a society that was on the watch for such things, I hear you cry. Yet such a thing was on the way to happening in the very United States of America that so values freedom.

During WWII, people who even looked slightly Japanese were detained in camps all over America for fear that they would be loyal to the Japanese. This was based off exactly no evidence what so ever and was done based simply because of race. Most Americans are immigrant families (as are most people in most nations if you go back far enough), but they did not think to lock up all the people who came over on ships from Germany to live, work and raise families in America...

More recently, we have seemingly had even more of our "rights" signed over on our behalf to combat terrorism. I was not consulted before this, nor were the vast majority of the population. It was decided on our behalf that loss of "some" of our privicy was a fair exchange for possibly being able to catch these terrible people who want to blow us all up and are hiding in every shadow in every corner, just waiting for you to drop your guard for even a second before killing you and your entire family...

And the reason that these people exist in the first place? Because the people in power abused their positions throughout history to take away the rights of others...

Frazzled wrote:My rights to freedom are not contingent on where I live.

True, but only if you consider freedom as an extension of will; rendering it inalienable by definition rather than practice. Otherwise even the right to freedom is just as Utopian as the right to an adequate standard of living.

Frazzled wrote:
Its an excuse by one group to tell another group what to do, in this case "for the good fo the community," which ususally means for their good or how they feel you should live. Obviously with rights come responsibilities, but the statement itself is an excuse for oppression.

So is the right to freedom.

Frazzled wrote:
No, they don't. They do have the fundamental right to be left alone.

Utopian nonsense. Life inevitably involves interaction with other people (unless you're some form of hermit), and whether or not someone is being left alone is almost entirely subjective.

@Artick_Fang: I pretty much agree with everything you're saying. (P.S. Australia DOES need a Bill of Rights, it's just too easy at the moment for the government to ignore basic human rights, aka Tampa Crisis)

@Frazzled: Yeah, sure. If you don't want to belong to a community, then you have the right to go where you want. Article 13. But if you ARE going to be part of a community, you can't just sit back and enjoy the fruits of other peoples labours. You have to help. (In some way, like GET A JOB!)

Also, in general, I included the UN Declaration of Human Rights becuase I beileve BASICALLY this pretty much states what IS right. And that breaking any of these is wrong.

14 is to easy to circumnvent. the government your fleeing from just charges you with a hienous crime.

Matter of fact that a lot of these are just loopholes more than guarantees.

The answers to whether something is right or wrong are purely situational. The needs of the particular situation are what drives what is right or wrong. A set in stone for the ages moral codes is impossible unless it makes allowances for this fact.


I find it funny that the UN has this code. A group of amoral Machiavellian Governments attempting to define morality for the human race is "Ironic" to say the least.

This code is more of a propaganda thing that they say "we stand for this" but the reality is they will never effectively, equally, or consistantly enforce this code.

Emperors Faithful wrote:But if you ARE going to be part of a community, you can't just sit back and enjoy the fruits of other peoples labours.

I disagree, I've been doing if for over a year. I have no job, do no community service, do nothing that serves or betters my community(other than keep my wife happy). My wife works, I just reap the rewards of her work.

4) No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

29) Everyone has a duty to serve and support his or her community.

Fail.

^Did GW write the UN moral code?

Thank god Gwar doesn't believe in morality!

34) Pr0n exists for everything
35) if pr0n doesn't exist, it will be created

I think Dogma is on to something. We should consider whether a "right" is meaningful if it is merely established ("posited") by law, that is--granted by the lawmaker, or inherent. If a right is part of the nature of a human being then it cannot be circumscribed, except according to its nature, or denied but only violated.

Ya know, such a lofty doctrine or code of ethics can be reinterpreted into something meaningless at best and sinister at worst.

This is going to force me to think like a lawyer or TFG they are interchangable I know old joke. Bad FF No inter net donuts for you.

1)Legally unenforceable and hope it stays that way because if not then it is a clause for Totalitarian repression of free speech.
2)Being entitled to rights and guarantees never made or fulfilled is like multiplying freedom by 0.
3)Who defines what is Life, Liberty, and personal security. Personal security could mean that you have a police escort everywhere, just like criminals.
4)Legally Unenforceable. Docking pay would constitute a crime. Who is this one they refer to anyway?He will be doing good whille the group labours for free.
5)Who defines what constitutes such behavior. Prisoner being forced to wear pink in order to emasculate them could constitute emotionally degradeing treatment.
6)Easy, Government agent says I recognize you are a person......BANG!!!
7)Equal protection is meanless if no one is protected.
8)Legal help is not the same as legal protection
9)Depends on what passes for due legal process at the time. Legal process in the past has meant the time you get to say your prayers before the lever is pulled and the rope goes tight.
10)Bestow the title of independent upon the state funded and controlled court gets around that rule.
11)Just as long as they are proven guilty
12)Says no one "should" be as opposed to a declaration of such behavior of "will not" be tolerated.
13)Legally-Completely unenforceable. What if they want to park their house on an airport runway.
14)Already addressed this. The government just charges you with such a crime.
15)Which nationality and who determines such?
16)Define family and doesn't state you have the right to choose your partner.
17)Is property singular or plural here? Doesn't define the extent of this protection so is unenforceable.
18)A government Gauranteeing the right to free thought is another way of saying it is ok to establish a thought police.
19)Same as above. When does this apply? Does it still apply when it conflicts with one of the others?
20)Doesn't say free or unsupervised
21)Everyone having the right to take part in a totalitarian dictatorship isn't much of a promise.
22)Right to be protected and controlled by the government
23)You have the right to work for the same underpaid wage as the next person.
24)Failure to define what is considered rest, liesure or holidays or what is entailed in such.
25)Define adequate
26)What sort of an education and doesn't mean much if there is only one choice
27)What is considered taking part in?
28)What rights and freedoms? What situation?Living in a cell might be considered enough.
29)Everyone has the right to have there rights taken away
30)No one should but avoided saying such wouldn't be tolerated.

I'll leave it to the next guy to iterpret this into something funny

Have fun

focusedfire wrote:What rights and freedoms?

Sincerely asking: is that the topic? Or are we talking about reading the meaning out of documents?

EMF wrote:Is there a right and wrong? A moral code that ALL human beings should abide by? Is it relative? What is it for you?

Yes this question is as broad as a cricket bat nailing a pin into the side of a barn... or something along those lines .

@Manchu-To answer your question,...both.

We live in a world that constantly tries to set right and wrong in stone but fails to recognize such is situational.

Setting such codes in writing, trying to lock in their meaning means that they are too rigid to be applied effectively.

So then begins the attempt to twist the written word to make it more flexible. This undercuts the foundation of the written code and eventually renders the written word meaninless.

When looking to set a code down "in stone" as it were it is important to be really careful. Channel your inner rules lawyer and inspect closely because if you don't someone looking to manipulate or abuse will.

These people will subvert the law to their uses without one care for the destabilizing effect it has upon society. Just so long as they gain the power, money, and or control they want.

This was what I was attempting to show.

Would you consider this on-topic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights

I have a few minutes, but not too much brain power, so I will diversify the information we can base this conversation out of.

Read through the Wiki article a little, and I will be posting some interesting stuff about this as I find it. To be perfectly honest, my opinion is pretty close to what G. Carling was talking about in the video I posted earlier. It is hard to put my opinions in a light that doesn't directly offend people. Talk about rights to an angry pack of dogs, or a charging bull, or even another human being that just wants to get a bite to eat, and your wallet seems to be a good a way as any... just give them the wallet, and take another street next time; guns kill, wallets don't (bank accounts are not wallets, nor are huge piles of cash being waded in on the weekends).

Umm... let us start here shall we? Seems a good a place as any .

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327166.200-do-crabs-have-rights.html

Poor crustaceans... and crazy people...

This is why the question at hand is pretty much a crizzidy-crock that will only allow people to berate others opinions. Doesn't anyone ever just have water fights anymore? Water balloon to the FACE!!! What do you think of THAT opinion huh?
http://bus.utk.edu/stat/mee/books/quest/q2.html

My main question that I hope to find out a little more information regarding during this discussion is:
Do morals provide a tug-of-war that keeps people wary enough to avoid total and utter disconnection from nature? If everyone agrees did we just break some universal rule?

IMHO this is by far as close as we are going to get to some sort of external rationalization to the degree of ACTUALLY compromising in a way that effects the human species in a positive way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#Natural_selection
(Apply this "practical fact" to the current discussion if you want to actually accomplish something)

I think we are just not smart enough to actually enforce such insanely complicated measures like a universal human rights declaration; but our tenacious and adaptable generic traits should be able to see some portion of our group evolve beyond a need for such ludicrous measures.

Yes... I am the guy with the wrench at the end of the assembly line, and I am one of many who will perform their "duty" to mess your "Utopian"...(erm... this looks more like hell to me.) plans up... then pick up the good parts and try to make something out of it... just a thought really...

Frazzled wrote:

No, they don't. They do have the fundamental right to be left alone. Anything else is the sweet siren call of the dictator.

This is a classic example of the difference between positive and negative rights. Typically conservatives will believe only in negative rights, the right not to be subjected to the actions of another person or group. Typically liberals will believe in positive rights, the right to be provided with something. For instance, a person believing in negative rights would believe that no-one has the right to dictate how they might spend their own money, while a believer in positive rights would believe there is a right to take a portion of some people's money to pay for universal education.

Point 29 on that list is a pretty good example, it's basically a statement that some people's freedom can be curtailed a little to guarantee other rights for everyone. This sounds horrible to a person who believes in negative rights, apparently it sounds so horrible they feel the need to use bold, underline and size 24 font.

@Sebster-Your last line sounds good, but one wonders how you would feel if on the recieving end. If your words were viewed as destabilizing and dangerous to the community. How would you feel about your rights being curtailed under those circumstances?

Not an attack. Just an example pointing out that when attempt to put morality into words and set into written law it is always a double edged sword

@focusedfire: I think your criticism (I think it is usually called cynicism but sometimes realism), which is certainly on-topic in this form, has a kind of general applicability to law but is not very helpful to analyzing the UDHR. That document has been interpreted as aspirational. Rather than being twisted, it has simply been ignored where inconvenient (by the United States, for example). I think that's because it does not, as I was attempting to draw out earlier, grant rights but recognizes them as already existing a priori to the law.

"Positive rights" are a flawed concept when they rely on others serving you for those "rights" to be maintained. Which is most of the time.

Manchu wrote:@focusedfire: I think your criticism (I think it is usually called cynicism but sometimes realism), which is certainly on-topic in this form, has a kind of general applicability to law but is not very helpful to analyzing the UDHR. That document has been interpreted as aspirational. Rather than being twisted, it has simply been ignored where inconvenient (by the United States, for example). I think that's because it does not, as I was attempting to draw out earlier, grant rights but recognizes them as already existing a priori to the law.

Thing is that the OP finished with saying it was dead on. There are a lot of individuals who would move to ratify such a code into an enforceable law without thinking of the consequences. I work from the thought process that no matter how noble in origin of something like this, Time and people will corrupt it. Whenever you seek to give power to a good leader you are just giving power to the despot that follows after.

Now recognition of such before applying law is good but even then we must not be afraid to address the possible contradictions. This prior recognition also goes back to the point of my first post and that is that the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong are situational.

An example:

Where it states that we all have the right to start a family. In the 19 40's and 50's when this was drawn up it seemed like a no brainer(By the way I support this right). Even now we still think in the west of this as an inalienable right.

But what about when the worlds oceans are empty, the Earths population is pushing 20 million, and starvation affects all but the richest families? The same people that support this right, in the present, would call for population limiting legislation in the future.

A certain dictator was evil. He tryed to create a master race. This concept is thought evil because he force bred humans in an attempt to produce superior humans. People transfer his evil to the idea. At the time it was also considered evil because it removed free choice from the couple and the children where products and property of the state.

Now make a certain international pandemic only survivable by having the right DNA that is possessed by a very few people. How long before these people would be "required" to donate their genetics (Men semen/women forced child bearing) to the great quest for human survival. How long would women rights stand up in the face of possible extinction?

I can go on.

Your label of realist is the most appropriate, I think. I have been reffered to as such before in complimentary statements.


Edit for spelling and puctuation

focusedfire wrote:the Earths population is pushing 20 million

Oh no!

( )

Orkeosaurus wrote:

focusedfire wrote:the Earths population is pushing 20 million

Oh no!

( )

Thank you for the perfect example of a Dakka misquote : Wonder who you learned that from ?

focusedfire wrote:But what about when the worlds oceans are empty, the Earths population is pushing 20 million and starvation affects all but the richest families. The same people that support this right, in the present, would call for population limiting legislation in the future.

A certain dictator was evil. He tryed to create a master race. This concept is thought evil because he force bread humans in an attempt to produce superior humans. People transfer his evil to the idea. At the time it was also considered evil because it removed free choice from the couple and the children where products and property of the state.

Hmmm... need I say more?

Really... REALLY? REALLY???

Seriously, that is just Godwins Law with a hat on it man, and if I am not mistaken you are rationalizing the "plan" for some "master race" as a way to... wait what are you meaning here anyway?

Clarify or offend please.

focusedfire wrote:Thank you for the perfect example of a Dakka misquote : Wonder who you learned that from ?

I dunno.

@Wrexasaur-Ready to follow the rabbit into its hole?

Doesn't have to be Goodwin's law. Could be reffering to biblical times when another superior race was bred and every nation around them thought their leader(Jehovah) was evil. Thing is they won their war during that time and the winners write the history books.

Same comparison for the Spartans, mongols, or Attilla and his boys. We view Spartans as good because of how their history was written after their greatest victories and view Attilla as not good because he was stopped short.

These are societies that have similar stories about race perfection and what to do with sickly deformed babies. But we view them as good or evil depending upon the situation and who got to write the histories about them.

Now all of this adds to my point.

You asked for clarity or offend.

The clarity is already there and there is no need to be offended by talking about history.

One of the greatest absurdeties of modern society is the demonization effect. Someone does something viewed as bad/evil so nothing they ever said/did, say/do, or will say/do is considered credible. By todays standards Socrates would never have been important. We allow ourselves to have knee jerk reactions as an excuse to not face the difficult truths that controversial people represent.

Getting back to your question. Do I believe in the creation of a master race or not?

Both............... I support the right to choose your mate and make whatever you can but at the same time I can see that by pure logic we should be breeding to improve the species.
Is this a cop out? No, it is the simple realization that our view of what is right and wrong is completely dependent upon our personal circumstances and the situation in which we are confronted with the question. I beleive in the right to choose but when confronted with the threat of extiction I'd do my part to help the race survive.

I must also admit to finding the though ironic that any who play a game dominated by scientifically created genetic supermen would be offended by the thought of breeding for superior effect.

Does that Help?

@focusedfire: People only view spartans as good becuase they watch 300 and go 'ooooooh'. Looking at history, you'll realise that Sparta SUCKED. That it was a military dictatorship who enslaved and brutally supressed anyone who wasn't a purebred spartan. Forcing them to do the 'non-soldier' tasks.

l ol, I get your (last) point about breeding people. (A lot of it didn't make sense though).

Also, your points about the 30 pieces of the Universal Declaration is UTTER FAIL. You asked them to define what they're saying, claiming they're to broad and inspecific. They're ARTICLES, each one of these points are desribed in detail. But to save on PAGES on legislation, I just posted the basic pieces.

focusedfire wrote:Getting back to your question. Do I believe in the creation of a master race or not?

Very thin ice you appear to be skating on then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_race

focusedfire wrote:Both............... I support the right to choose your mate and make whatever you can but at the same time I can see that by pure logic we should be breeding to improve the species.
Is this a cop out? No, it is the simple realization that our view of what is right and wrong is completely dependent upon our personal circumstances and the situation in which we are confronted with the question. I beleive in the right to choose but when confronted with the threat of extiction I'd do my part to help the race survive.

By pure logic we already are breeding to improve the species, this is quite obvious to most people. Soon we will lose our pinkies and our fingers will start to get quite a bit longer. You can see people on the planet like this now. What you are describing is a wishy-washy liberal version of eugenics. Although you say we should decide to have "better" partners, what you appear to mean is that we need to speed up the "loose change". The "strong" do not automatically override the weak, the weak are systematically taken out by nature, whether the strong have anything to do with it or not. You are stating that we will need to take DRASTIC measure at some point to step in for natural selection and somehow perform better than the planet that spawned us. Technology, etc... etc... etc... POMPEII!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection

Study and think a bit more before you type out psuedo-Godwin-esque statements.

Try and spin as you like, but who are you to say we are not on track right now? Why does one man (in this case a small group of people) have the right to decide anything about the groups life? Where is your scientific data stating that this is in any way a necessity, beyond the fact that overpopulation appears to scare you?

focusedfire wrote:I must also admit to finding the though ironic that any who play a game dominated by scientifically created genetic supermen would be offended by the thought of breeding for superior effect.

Dot, dot, dot. The part about being toys appears to have escaped you.

Still don't get it. Even in detail, once written they become to inflexible.

I know they go into detail but they still fail at what they purport to uphold. They are more glorified loopholes than anything effective.

I also think you miss the point in that I hope they stay that way. I don't care how much of a saint the person or group is, you give them that much power and within two genrations it would create the most world dominant, totalitarian, and dictatorial government ever seen.

Greatest tool in the world can be used for the greatest evil if left in the wrong hands.

So your point about the article being dead on and applicable on a world wide basis would be a form of fail, No?

focusedfire wrote:@Sebster-Your last line sounds good, but one wonders how you would feel if on the recieving end. If your words were viewed as destabilizing and dangerous to the community. How would you feel about your rights being curtailed under those circumstances?

Not an attack. Just an example pointing out that when attempt to put morality into words and set into written law it is always a double edged sword

I'm not talking about putting morality into words, I'm saying that a lot of people, and I'm one of them, believe people have rights beyond being left alone. A classic example is a right to education, it would be a positive right to say every child in the country deserves access to a certain level of education.

And yeah, what one person considers a right may infringe on something someone else considers a right. Whether you're looking at negative or positive rights that's going to happen. So we all debate the merits of the different options, come to our own conclusions and then hope the right we think is most important gets priority.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orkeosaurus wrote:"Positive rights" are a flawed concept when they rely on others serving you for those "rights" to be maintained. Which is most of the time.

Every right relies on it being maintained by the rest of society. It would be a negative right to say 'I can say whatever I want', and I would still be relying on the rest of society to agree with that and not come around and tar and feather me for my opinions on the umpiring in the Ashes series.

@focusedfire: You're never happy, are you? First you complained that they weren't specific enough, and now you complain that they are too inflexible?

Also, this is about how, as far as morals go, The Declaration is accurate and pretty much represents all peoples views. This thread wasn't about whether they worked in practice or not, it's about whether they are something good to aspire too.

Emperors Faithful wrote:@focusedfire: You're never happy, are you? First you complained that they weren't specific enough, and now you complain that they are too inflexible?

Also, this is about how, as far as morals go, The Declaration is accurate and pretty much represents all peoples views. This thread wasn't about whether they worked in practice or not, it's about whether they are something good to aspire too.

Wow, Way to behave like a politician and conviently forget what you posted. In your first post you didn't state that the post was about whether they were something to aspire to. Instead,

You said that they,"Should be followed to the letter. Without exceptions." You were the one that suggested that they should be put into practice. Yet you try to shift the blame to me when I point out that they wouldn't work in practice.

I've said it before elswhere and will say it again here. You can't legislate morality any more than you can legislate a soul. Law is about justice which is about trying to be fair. there is a reason why justice is represeted by a blind woman. Its because the law applies to everyone whether good or bad. Being fair is not the same as being good.

Now to answer your first question. Actually, I'm quite happy for the most part.

Now a question from me. Is it so hard to grasp the basic concept that these articles can be both overly specific and not specific enough at the same time? This is why I refer to them as being to "inflexible". The "situations" where they might be applied will not always be identical. Its like this:

A man that walks into a store, pulls a gun, and shoots someone thus killing them. What do you call him?

Now what if that man was a Cop and the other man was A known felon. What do you call him then?

Now what if the Cop was settling a personal score hiding behind his badge? What do you call him then?

Can't make my point much clearer. Either you will get it or you won't.


@Wrexasaur-

What shaky ground? Admiting to understanding the logic behind a breeding program to improve the human species is no worse than saying I understand the logic behind emminent domain when applied to making way for our AutoBahm...err Interstate system....yeah that is what we amercians will call it, the Eisenhower Interstate system.

I support the right of the individual. I don't "feel" we should be bullying individuals out of their personal property just because it suits the needs of the group. This tyranny of the masses/majority I feel is wrong but it doesn't make me bad or a hippocrit to admit that I understand the logic behind why poeple support such things and why the government does them.


Now, your next point about us already breeding to improve the species is completely fallacious. By your answer you either completely missed my point or wish to try and cast me in a negative light(Wishy-washy liberal) because you are afraid or unable to contemplate what I was saying.
We are not breeding to improve the species and here are some of the signs:

First, Birth defects are going up around the world, not the missing a finger kind but the horribly debilitating going to be a vegetable for life kind.
http://www.obgyn.net/newsheadlines/womens_health-Birth_Defects-20031106-5.asp

Second, We have the Tech to identify whether someone has gentic defects but are not applying such to keep the defects to a minimum or eventually breed the defect out of the species.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080403/NEWS/804030329

Third, Your mentioning natural selction as still applicable is laughable. We live in a world where our technology and very society flies in the face of natural selection. We use our science and medicine to keep weaker members of the species alive and then allow them to breed.


Now, I make a good case(Could use emotional wording to make it more compelling) for starting such a program. Do I believe we should do such? Heck No. I could make just as good of a case for not starting such a program but I would never dare to imply that we are currently breeding to improve the species. If we are in the future confronted with the choice of having to institute such or fail as a species. I'll understand when the governments start rounding up the best genetic specimens.

PS Wiki isn't a credible source. Start looking at the sites with credible sources. Study them and think befor you attempt to school someone who has a better grasp and knowledge of the situation.


Your line after your attempt to school me with wiki(chuckle) shows that you are behaving in the knee jerk way that I mentioned earlier. I never said I was proponent of such a program. I actually stated that, "I support the right to choose your mate and make whatever you can but at the same time I can see by pure logic why we should be breeding to improve the species."

That statement says that I support the right of the individual to breed however they want but that I understand the logic behind breeding programs. Your Knee jerk response to the term master race is an emeotional response rather than a logical one. I beleive a banana is a banana and a rose is a rose, *No matter what name you may call them by*. Any attempt to improve the human species by controlled breeding will be an attempt to create a master race. You can call it breeding for superior effect or the Human genome project. It still boils down to being the same thing. Whether it will be consider good or evil will be the needs of the times.


As to your last statement,...Duh, it takes "toys" to play the "game". I called it a game, it seems that the concept of Irony has escped you my friend.


Edit for spelling

sebster wrote:Every right relies on it being maintained by the rest of society. It would be a negative right to say 'I can say whatever I want', and I would still be relying on the rest of society to agree with that and not come around and tar and feather me for my opinions on the umpiring in the Ashes series.

That's beside the point; I'm talking about requiring the labor of others to preserve your "rights", not the inaction of others.

Also, negative rights don't require the maintenance of others when a person is not interacting with others. "Positive rights" (often) cease to exist without others working for you. In that sense, negative rights do not rely on others for their maintenance, others merely jeopardize their existence.

@focusedfire: That was my personal opinion. I didn't actually mean that to be the focus of discussion, but what-the-hell, this discussion's getting interesting as it is.

In answer to all your questions. It's murder, plain and simple. As far as I can see, the man offered no resistance and was given no chance to surrender. In all cases, the man was shot in cold blood. In fact, even the LAW (in Aus) would see it that way. The 'cop' would most likely be jailed.

You still haven't asnwered my question, is the UN Dlecaration of Human Rights something to aspire too, and would pretty much make a perfect world? Or do you disagree with some (any) of the articles? Do you think the very idea of human rights is a waste of time?

EDIT: I misread some of the things that focusedfire posted, and I would like to apologize to him directly for any offense. I mean no harm by what I say, I just get a bit worked up from time to time.

focusedfire wrote:I support the right of the individual

A.) Agreed to a point
B.) Stop telling me to find "verifiable" sources and source information to back up what YOU are saying.

Verify what YOU say, do not tell me I am wrong because I choose to quote one of the fairest sources of information on the interwebz. BTW, you sir have absolutely no rationale to compare toys to the points you are making; doing so lowers my confidence in your ability to focus on a single point to the area most refer to as conclusion.

focusedfire wrote:Your line after your attempt to school me with wiki(chuckle) shows that you are behaving in the knee jerk way that I mentioned earlier. I never said I was proponent of such a program. I actually stated that, "I support the right to choose your mate and make whatever you can but at the same time I can see by pure logic why we should be breeding to improve the species."

Chuckle less, and prove more.

http://www.obgyn.net/newsheadlines/womens_health-Birth_Defects-20031106-5.asp

http://www.obgyn.net/newsheadlines/womens_health-Birth_Defects-20031106-5.asp wrote:Birth defects are on the rise, both in the United States and worldwide. Premature births have risen 20% in the past 20 years, with about 1,280 premature babies are born daily worldwide, according to the March of Dimes

And? What does this exactly have to do with our natural selection? Could this be due to the chemicals introduced by man over the past century?

You quote a study based on ONE group, possibly more, over the past 20 years... Think about that then tell me how you cannot cross-reference information from the beautifully summarized Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

Studying has a lot more to do with MY research, and the information that has been so successfully organized (and moderated) into Wikipedia; next time you feel like insulting me by saying something about Wiki, just P.M. me, or send a obnoxious e-mail to Wikipedia and their staff. Or post something about the fallacies that Wikipedia so liberally vomits onto your screen.

I took a look through your second link and it still fails to explain what your are actually talking about.
http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080403/NEWS/804030329

Look through this and explain to me how it is not some sort of "Bionic man" program perceived through the eyes of the media.
"Teh technology is there, we have the information (where is this BTW?) to make him better, faster, stronger than before!"

Do you have any idea the kind of technology we have access to right now? More importantly do you realize the actual factual determined negative outcomes that this type of advanced technology to a morally conflicted species reliant on fossil-fuel, and in some cases reliant on philosophies that bear no relevance to the current state of affairs?

Due to re-reading focusedfire's posts again, most if not all of this is not directed at him, and it should be so duly noted.

@Wrexasaur-AHH, That was what happend. I had gone through and done a complete line for line reply and it wouldn't post. I must have tried to do so as you were editing. Might I suggest that you remove the parts where you indulge in name calling and the part where you imply that I am a Nazi or nazi sympathizer in a libelest statement. They are clearly a violation of the dakka behaviorial policy.
It is the line where you say," your master race plan". I have no such plan and have never put such a plan forward. This being written, untrue, and of a possible defamatory nature makes your statement libel.
Discussing a breeding program that society may someday view as good but right now would consider very bad is not the same as having a plan. What I have been saying all along is that when society gets to the point of thinking it is good it will still be the same thing that has been done before, no matter what politically correct name they give it.

Honestly, If you feel anything else needs to be redone then go ahead. I will admit that when I got to the part with the name calling and the implied slur I almost hit the mod button.

I'll give you time to make what ever changes you feel the need for and then read your edited post without any prejudice.

PS. If you want to know why I am down on wiki as a reliable source, go to their frontpage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

In the upper corner it says it can be edited by anybody.

There is more but I'll get into it later.


@Emperors Faithful- Nice discussion corner you have me in at this point. So I'll cop-out with this.

In answer to your question, Do I feel that the Declaration is something to aspire to? Unable to answer without having the entire document in front of me. It has been a while since I read the whole thing in detail.

I will say that there is nothing wrong with them as a personal credo as long as you can deal with the areas of contridiction without throwing off your own personal moral compass.
I just don't want them as a written Law. Such a thing would have to be voted on district by district and if it fails to ratify in a district then it doesn't apply there.

Now, Interesting on your answer. Mine would have been that I couldn't say until I got more details and knew the "situation".

There was no right or wrong answer, really. It is more of a psychological question designed to reveal things about ones personality.

Think about it and let me know what you think.

Later.

focusedfire wrote:PS. If you want to know why I am down On wiki as a reliable source, go to their frontpage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

In the upper corner it says it can be edited by anybody.

There is more but I'll get into it later.

I agree, but most if not all of the information is checked on a regular basis by people that have the time, and care about what the site represents. Any information on there can be verified through other links, and I would not base a paper of it alone by any means (the ole' wiki-homework trick).

Wiki is actually a great site to talk about here, because they exercise the right to free speech in a fantastic way. A great point to talk about is the fact that Scientology offices were actually perma-banned from editing articles for many of the reason you do not like Wiki I am sure. This shows the legitimate concern over censorship and bold-faced lies, but it is not meant as much more than an interactive encyclopedia with a bunch of fancy features and the option to update information. The articles that get messed with the most are usually not scientific or all that "important" in any way, and there are pieces that are actually owned by people/companies if I am not mistaken (I could be ); in some way people are responsible to not lie, that is the long and the short of it.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

17) Everyone has the right to own property and the right not to be deprived of his or her property.

No they don't, and no they shouldn't. If you hold this to be true, then every government in the world should be required to just give someone property, regardless of whether they have earned it or not. This is both illogical and unethical. You don't reward people for nothing. The ownership of property is a privilege, not a right.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
21) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his or her country, directly or through representatives, i.e. the right to vote and elect representatives. [This is often defined as the right to democracy.]

This is just sheer foolishness. The idea that democracy is the best form of government only highlights the arrogance and idiocy of some Western idealists. Each country should be free to determine its own government. Be it democracy, monarchy, totalitarianism, etc. Democracy, which doesn't really exist anyway, only works in a very unique setting. And in most cultures it just won't work. Montesquieu had it right when he declared that not one type of government will work for every nation.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
22) Everyone has the right to economic, social and cultural security.

Idealized rubbish at its finest. It also has a strong whiff of socialism....which I personally find appalling. But, as I have already said, that is for each country to decide on their own.

Emperors Faithful wrote: 25) Everyone has the to an adequate standard of living.

See previous statement....

Emperors Faithful wrote:
30) No one should act in any way that will damage the rights and freedoms of another person.

This statement of course inhibits natural rights, ie speech, religion, etc., because some actions of various groups will be taken as an infringement on another persons rights. For example, a Catholic mother teaches her children that homosexuality is a sin, that can very easily be taken as an infringement of another person's rights because it, in some viewpoints, labels homos as second class citizens. I find this to be absolute lunacy, and that the free exercise of your natural, God given rights, should not be limited by the government...of course this takes us to a whole different thread of conversation....

Orkeosaurus wrote:That's beside the point; I'm talking about requiring the labor of others to preserve your "rights", not the inaction of others.

You're neutering the notion of rights. If a right requires no considerate action on the part of others, then it is simply a tautological statement. For example, the right to life is necessarily fulfilled when discussing any possible human as the human in question must exist in order to be the subject of discussion. Thus, stating that all people have the right to life simply means that someone who is alive must be alive.

For the concept of rights to be meaningful at all there must be some form of outside labor.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

JEB_Stuart wrote:You don't reward people for nothing.

Since when?

JEB_Stuart wrote:
This is just sheer foolishness. The idea that democracy is the best form of government only highlights the arrogance and idiocy of some Western idealists. Each country should be free to determine its own government. Be it democracy, monarchy, totalitarianism, etc. Democracy, which doesn't really exist anyway, only works in a very unique setting. And in most cultures it just won't work. Montesquieu had it right when he declared that not one type of government will work for every nation.

I agree, the right to representation is only problematic when its equated with the right to democracy.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Idealized rubbish at its finest. It also has a strong whiff of socialism....which I personally find appalling. But, as I have already said, that is for each country to decide on their own.

Really? Actually, this question can only be asked in sequential process: really, really, really? Because what you're questioning is a fundamental premise of capitalism.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
See previous statement....

Yep...

JEB_Stuart wrote:
This statement of course inhibits natural rights, ie speech, religion, etc., because some actions of various groups will be taken as an infringement on another persons rights. For example, a Catholic mother teaches her children that homosexuality is a sin, that can very easily be taken as an infringement of another person's rights because it, in some viewpoints, labels homos as second class citizens. I find this to be absolute lunacy, and that the free exercise of your natural, God given rights, should not be limited by the government...of course this takes us to a whole different thread of conversation....

One which renders the entire concept of 'right' impotent.

Huzzah! The world is not simple, which means I can expect to have my brain-power/knowledge employed for some time.

*Pats Own Back*

Orkeosaurus wrote:That's beside the point; I'm talking about requiring the labor of others to preserve your "rights", not the inaction of others.

So you're opposed to taxation to ensure a minimum level of education for everyone?

Also, negative rights don't require the maintenance of others when a person is not interacting with others. "Positive rights" (often) cease to exist without others working for you. In that sense, negative rights do not rely on others for their maintenance, others merely jeopardize their existence.

Which is the kind of thing that sounds very important when talking about things at a hypothetical level, but ends up making little real difference when looking at what rights people find very important in the real world. We are social creatures living in a very complex society, where everything we do is governed by our interactions with others. To ignore those interactions when deciding what rights are most important makes no sense.

dogma wrote:
Since when?

Sorry for the lack of clarity, you shouldn't reward people for doing nothing. It is unethical and unfair.

dogma wrote:
I agree, the right to representation is only problematic when its equated with the right to democracy.

Thank you, yes democracy is not an innate right. To be sure, it is merely a form of government that the West trumpets because of its own self-assured political superiority.

dogma wrote:
Really? Actually, this question can only be asked in sequential process: really, really, really? Because what you're questioning is a fundamental premise of capitalism.

Again I need to clarify. The ability or freedom to pursue a better living standard is of course a powerful and appealing element to capitalism, but I do not believe every person is guaranteed to economic security. As for my thoughts on the adequate standard of living, I hate that rule simply because it puts such a vague term on how a person should live. Both the more spartan and the more gluttonous can abuse this terrible phrasing, especially to subjugate or to garner votes. I would go into more detail, but I just don't want to type that much.

dogma wrote:
Huzzah! The world is not simple, which means I can expect to have my brain-power/knowledge employed for some time.

Agreed this world is not simple, nor should it be. But I will say that I am thankful for the freedom we have to discuss this, especially in the face of so much oppression in the world.

dogma wrote:You're neutering the notion of rights. If a right requires no considerate action on the part of others, then it is simply a tautological statement. For example, the right to life is necessarily fulfilled when discussing any possible human as the human in question must exist in order to be the subject of discussion. Thus, stating that all people have the right to life simply means that someone who is alive must be alive.

For the concept of rights to be meaningful at all there must be some form of outside labor.

I didn't say that they require no consideration from others, I said they require no labor from others. Someone who is alive is alive so long as no one intervenes.

sebster wrote:So you're opposed to taxation to ensure a minimum level of education for everyone?

No, and I'm not opposed to roads either.

That doesn't mean those things are inalienable rights. Just civil services.

Which is the kind of thing that sounds very important when talking about things at a hypothetical level, but ends up making little real difference when looking at what rights people find very important in the real world. We are social creatures living in a very complex society, where everything we do is governed by our interactions with others. To ignore those interactions when deciding what rights are most important makes no sense.

How am I ignoring them?

If rights are fundamental and inalienable, they need to be able to be attained by a person without interaction with anyone else. Because despite the fact that most people today live in fairly social circumstances, that's not the only possible circumstance for a person to live in. (Unless you want to start blaming nature for violating people's rights!)

I agree completely Orkeo, but let us not forget one incredibly important rule concerning rights: these are merely ideas and liberties that the average citizen should expect to enjoy, without fear of retribution or otherwise from the government. Rights are specifically labeled as a matter to govern the relationship of the people's various expressions and the authority of the government, this is not however relevant to citizens relations. It has been theorized, and I find this theory to be sufficiently adequate, that no one citizen can violate another citizens rights, rather they can only commit a crime. The government is the only entity that can actively suppress one's rights because it suppresses them through official and not private action.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I didn't say that they require no consideration from others, I said they require no labor from others. Someone who is alive is alive so long as no one intervenes.

Consideration is a form of labor.

And that person who is alive can only remain so through physical exertion in the pursuit of food, water, and shelter; either through direct or indirect means.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
If rights are fundamental and inalienable, they need to be able to be attained by a person without interaction with anyone else. Because despite the fact that most people today live in fairly social circumstances, that's not the only possible circumstance for a person to live in. (Unless you want to start blaming nature for violating people's rights!)

If they can be attained without interaction, why are they being discussed? Remember, even a slave possesses agency, and therefore freedom in its most basic sense.

Dogma wrote:And that person who is alive can only remain so through physical exertion in the pursuit of food, water, and shelter; either through direct or indirect means.

I agree first of all, but in a general sense. I think Orkeosaurus is not saying what you think he is.

Sure I need food and water to survive (shelter is debatable in it's full spectrum of relevance to survival as an actual need) but the only thing often stopping me is another person who actively engages in regulating my access to the two essentials of life. I will not go to far because I hope to give you as little lee-way as possible Dogma .

Wrexasaur wrote:
I agree first of all, but in a general sense. I think Orkeosaurus is not saying what you think he is.

On re-reading his posts I think he's making the same point I am, but drawing the opposite conclusion. To summarize my view:

1: If a right is to be truly inalienable, then it must be impossible to take away. The right to life is a good example, as anyone who is killed must have been alive to begin with. As such by the very circumstance of being alive, the right to life is fulfilled.

2: Because a truly inalienable right is rendered conditionally impotent, if we mean for rights to be compelling concepts we must treat them as more than fundamental ideas. For example, the right to life is not the right to life at all, but the right to not be killed by another human.

3: Because we must now attach additional concepts to our basic rights, it is no longer acceptable to reject rights on grounds of natural legitimacy; because no compelling right is truly natural.

Wrexasaur wrote:
Sure I need food and water to survive (shelter is debatable in it's full spectrum of relevance to survival as an actual need) but the only thing often stopping me is another person who actively engages in regulating my access to the two essentials of life. I will not go to far because I hope to give you as little lee-way as possible Dogma .

What if something else is stopping you? Perhaps a 1600 lb Grizzly Bear. Is that bear violating your rights?

dogma wrote:

Wrexasaur wrote:
Sure I need food and water to survive (shelter is debatable in it's full spectrum of relevance to survival as an actual need) but the only thing often stopping me is another person who actively engages in regulating my access to the two essentials of life. I will not go to far because I hope to give you as little lee-way as possible Dogma .

What if something else is stopping you? Perhaps a 1600 lb Grizzly Bear. Is that bear violating your rights?

The right for me to poke it in the eye, yes. Beyond this it is reacting as I would under it specific circumstances. I will go directly into the meaning of this: being that I am, and the bear does threaten I do attack directly. Given that I would behave no different than the bear under the given circumstances, I have no option but to react in the same way or face the consequences.

I fight you flight, you better be faster than I am. Hence the bow, spear, and ready side-arm to take down such foes that counter me to the core.

I present no counter to be taken, just the space that connects us to what we inequitably face at least once in a life time, perhaps twice if we have the ability to do so.

Then why discuss the concept of rights at all? If capacity is all that matters, then pondering the correctness of a decision seems rather pointless. After all, you could be poking more bears in the eye.

Emperors Faithful wrote:

I think that the UN got it bang on with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Now if they would just DO more about it...)

ahhhhh. . . if only, if only.


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dogma wrote: After all, you could be poking more bears in the eye.

I recall fond memories of the man attacks mountain lion with a chainsaw thread.

dogma wrote:Consideration is a form of labor.

I'd say only the reverse is always true.

And that person who is alive can only remain so through physical exertion in the pursuit of food, water, and shelter; either through direct or indirect means.

If, say, the religion of a person is not in any way affecting the ability of another person to pursue food, water, and shelter then how is that person's religion forcing the other person into labor?

If they can be attained without interaction, why are they being discussed? Remember, even a slave possesses agency, and therefore freedom in its most basic sense.

Just because they can be obtained without interaction doesn't mean the interaction of others can't stop you from obtaining it.

1: If a right is to be truly inalienable, then it must be impossible to take away. The right to life is a good example, as anyone who is killed must have been alive to begin with. As such by the very circumstance of being alive, the right to life is fulfilled.

2: Because a truly inalienable right is rendered conditionally impotent, if we mean for rights to be compelling concepts we must treat them as more than fundamental ideas. For example, the right to life is not the right to life at all, but the right to not be killed by another human.

3: Because we must now attach additional concepts to our basic rights, it is no longer acceptable to reject rights on grounds of natural legitimacy; because no compelling right is truly natural.

Hmm. When I said "inalienable" I didn't mean to say it was a right that couldn't be taken away by any means, so much as a force that couldn't be taken away without the intervention of another person. As you noted, the "truly inalienable rights" you described aren't really "rights" in the common sense of the word, merely features.

You make a good point about with #2: this goes back to the negative and positive rights that sebster was referring to. The negative form of what is commonly called "Freedom of Speech" is protection from being forcibly silenced by another. The positive form may be the right to actually speak; however there's the possibility of that being "violated" by sickness, or accident, or simply having no one willing to listen.

However, I don't see how having "Freedom of Speech" being a stylized way of saying "Freedom from Censorship" makes it unnatural; maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about with "natural legitimacy".

What if something else is stopping you? Perhaps a 1600 lb Grizzly Bear. Is that bear violating your rights?

Can a bear violate your rights? Can a tornado, or a disease?

I don't think so, mostly because I think that for forces of nature to violate your rights would make the concept of "rights" become too diluted to really be useful. I see "rights" as being an issue of morality, and I don't see morality as a feature of bears or storms.

dogma wrote:Then why discuss the concept of rights at all? If capacity is all that matters, then pondering the correctness of a decision seems rather pointless. After all, you could be poking more bears in the eye.

Unfortunately my ability (capacity rather) to poke bears in the eye bears ( heh ) no relevance to my right to do so. Right is no more than a definition that I use to decipher which way to indicate when I turn.

If the bears were (and in some cases are) the ones to take their rights out on us, we are usually none the wiser to inform anyone of their opinion. I have no problem with liberties, and this is reflected in my generally... erm... disdain, for these so called rights. You have the right to say you have rights, and the government has the right to enforce the public opinion as to what is actually deemed to be right in a culturally relevant sense.

Orkeosaurus wrote:No, and I'm not opposed to roads either.

That doesn't mean those things are inalienable rights. Just civil services.

So if a state decided schools were too expensive, shut them all down and told the parents to get their kids educated privately, you wouldn't have a problem if some people couldn't afford to get their kids educated? You'd just accept that education was a civil service no longer being provided, and that the children involved didn't have a right to education?

How am I ignoring them?

If rights are fundamental and inalienable, they need to be able to be attained by a person without interaction with anyone else.

Why is that important to what rights are? It appears to me that you think rights begin and end with things government cannot take away from you. While I'm working on the basis that rights are things you need to have to get a decent shot at a good life. Which is basically what I said when talking about positive and negative rights earlier.

It's an interesting distinction, because I honestly cannot get my head around the other side. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying I can't really grok where the idea that 'rights need to be attained by a person with interaction' comes from.

Because despite the fact that most people today live in fairly social circumstances, that's not the only possible circumstance for a person to live in. (Unless you want to start blaming nature for violating people's rights!)

Why would we base the core values of society on the idea that people could live a life removed from society? Shouldn't the core values of society be based around what people need to have decent shot at living, based on the society we have and the way people actually live?

Orkeosaurus wrote:I'd say only the reverse is always true.

If you consider something you are doing work. If you are doing work, then you are at labor. The fact that you might enjoy your consideration does not prevent it from being laborious.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
If, say, the religion of a person is not in any way affecting the ability of another person to pursue food, water, and shelter then how is that person's religion forcing the other person into labor?

The non-religious person must account for the existence, and thought, of the religious person. Even if he does so by attempting to ignore him.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Just because they can be obtained without interaction doesn't mean the interaction of others can't stop you from obtaining it.

Yes it does. Unless you're confining interaction to the interpersonal sense.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Hmm. When I said "inalienable" I didn't mean to say it was a right that couldn't be taken away by any means, so much as a force that couldn't be taken away without the intervention of another person.

You mean the intervention of another force. Which is fine, but since you're already assuming the existence of one force (the individual will), you must also assume the existence of any other conceivable force. At which point you're simply making an arbitrary distinction between the subjective force (the will) and some hypothetical opposition.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
You make a good point about with #2: this goes back to the negative and positive rights that sebster was referring to. The negative form of what is commonly called "Freedom of Speech" is protection from being forcibly silenced by another. The positive form may be the right to actually speak; however there's the possibility of that being "violated" by sickness, or accident, or simply having no one willing to listen.

However, I don't see how having "Freedom of Speech" being a stylized way of saying "Freedom from Censorship" makes it unnatural; maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're talking about with "natural legitimacy".

Its unnatural in the sense that it isn't assured by nature. For example, if I wanted to I could censor you. The matter of capacity prevents nature from serving to sanction the right.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
Can a bear violate your rights? Can a tornado, or a disease?

I don't think so, mostly because I think that for forces of nature to violate your rights would make the concept of "rights" become too diluted to really be useful. I see "rights" as being an issue of morality, and I don't see morality as a feature of bears or storms.

I agree. However, that also means any argument for any right must hinge on consequentialism: ie. we have the right to freedom because the world feels better in the context of its possession.

sebster wrote:So if a state decided schools were too expensive, shut them all down and told the parents to get their kids educated privately, you wouldn't have a problem if some people couldn't afford to get their kids educated? You'd just accept that education was a civil service no longer being provided, and that the children involved didn't have a right to education?

I wouldn't necessarily refrain from petitioning against the move simply because I don't think it's a fundamental right; I would be pretty unhappy if they demolished all of the country's roads as well.

"Some people couldn't afford" is an interesting part of the situation; let's look at it in the context of something simpler, like food. How do you get food? The most basic way would be to hunt for or grow food in some fashion. However, this does not require the labor of others; it only requires access to land and resources that have existed on the earth prior to anything done by someone else. Now, clearly, most acquisition of food today (in the industrialized countries, at least) is a result of buying it from someone else. This makes sense, people organize a system in which they can specialize in one occupation and trade with others to get what they need. Still though, if that system went belly-up, it would be back to sustaining oneself from what's on the earth.

Why is that important to what rights are? It appears to me that you think rights begin and end with things government cannot take away from you.

While I'm working on the basis that rights are things you need to have to get a decent shot at a good life. Which is basically what I said when talking about positive and negative rights earlier.

It's an interesting distinction, because I honestly cannot get my head around the other side. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying I can't really grok where the idea that 'rights need to be attained by a person with interaction' comes from.

I should probably expound on my position, then; I think everyone has a claim to the land and resources of the planet. What a good life entails is dependent on your situation, but generally speaking you can live a decent life without the aid of others (ignoring childhood, here). You can live better with the aid of others, and that's why people choose to form relationships, but it's possible to live well while doing all of your work for yourself, and receiving no work from others.

It's not possible to live well without access to the planet's resources; it's not possible to live at all. That may be a form of positive right, depending on how you phrase it. ("I have a right to use this grassland" versus "I have a right to not have others stop me from using this grassland")

This is where economic systems come in; natural resources are scarce (in the sense that they're not infinite, or so abundant they may as well be), so part of the reason states from is to try and manage them. I don't know of any economic system that does this perfectly; capitalism gives the resources to individuals, but there's no method of making sure it's distributed equally. Democratic socialism puts the lands in the hand of the government, which means it's put in the hands of whoever forms the majority at the best of times, and whoever controls the system of election at the worst of times. (In that sense, I think the best form of economic system that's going to be around in the near future is some form of hybridization between the two.)


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dogma wrote:If you consider something you are doing work. If you are doing work, then you are at labor. The fact that you might enjoy your consideration does not prevent it from being laborious.

The non-religious person must account for the existence, and thought, of the religious person. Even if he does so by attempting to ignore him.

Maybe we're defining "labor" differently. I was reffering to significant physical activity, or even strenous mental activity.

I wasn't considering "you have be aware of something's existence" a form of labor.

Yes it does. Unless you're confining interaction to the interpersonal sense.

Eh? Yes, I was talking about the relationship between people...

You mean the intervention of another force. Which is fine, but since you're already assuming the existence of one force (the individual will), you must also assume the existence of any other conceivable force. At which point you're simply making an arbitrary distinction between the subjective force (the will) and some hypothetical opposition.

No, I mean another person.

Lightning is a force.

Its unnatural in the sense that it isn't assured by nature. For example, if I wanted to I could censor you. The matter of capacity prevents nature from serving to sanction the right.

Ah. I didn't ever mean to imply that rights were assured by nature.

I agree. However, that also means any argument for any right must hinge on consequentialism: ie. we have the right to freedom because the world feels better in the context of its possession.

How is that different from morality in general?

Orkeosaurus wrote:Maybe we're defining "labor" differently. I was reffering to significant physical activity, or even strenous mental activity.

I wasn't considering "you have be aware of something's existence" a form of labor.

Probably. I tend to favor the notion that inaction is impossible, so that could be the source of dispute.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
No, I mean another person.

Lightning is a force.

Yes, it is. Why is lightning incomparable to a person?

Orkeosaurus wrote:
How is that different from morality in general?

It isn't. That's the crux of my argument. Rights are moral principles, and thus can only be judged by the 'reality' they produce.

Wrexasaur wrote:
Unfortunately my ability (capacity rather) to poke bears in the eye bears ( heh ) no relevance to my right to do so. Right is no more than a definition that I use to decipher which way to indicate when I turn.

If the bears were (and in some cases are) the ones to take their rights out on us, we are usually none the wiser to inform anyone of their opinion. I have no problem with liberties, and this is reflected in my generally... erm... disdain, for these so called rights. You have the right to say you have rights, and the government has the right to enforce the public opinion as to what is actually deemed to be right in a culturally relevant sense.

So you believe that might makes right?

I didn't mean to say that people weren't forces, just that there are forces besides people. (Also, I don't know why I had called rights a "force" to begin with. It seems a strange description for them...)

In terms of rights being moral principles, I agree with you.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I didn't mean to say that people weren't forces, just that there are forces besides people. (Also, I don't know why I had called rights a "force" to begin with. It seems a strange description for them...)

Ah, gotcha.

Orkeosaurus wrote:
In terms of rights being moral principles, I agree with you.

I'd be interested to hear what you see as human rights.

I tend to think in terms of what you shouldn't do more than what you should be able to do.

I guess if I tried to define rights, something like this?

1) The right to believe whatever you want, and to express your beliefs in a manner that do not deprive others of their rights (so speech, religion, press and so forth would be covered).

2) The right to own property that you've created, or at least own it in the part that it was created by you.

3) The right to make transactions without the use of physical force or fraud.

4) The right to defend yourself and your property, when you are justified in doing so.

5) The right to not be physically harmed by others, unless you are doing something to violate someone else' rights first.

6) The right to fair use/"ownership" of land and natural resources. Along with that, the right to provide for oneself with those resources, and the right to have privacy on your land (and a degree of privacy on public land).

7) The right to be tried fairly if accused of a crime. The right to be punished fairly if convicted.

How do you reconcile the right to speech with itself? In other words, what prevents the apple pie shouting match?

Peach cobbler?

(I'm not familiar with what the apple pie shouting match entails. )

Ah, my bad. I thought that analogy was common.

Basically it references American politics as mob politics.

Ipso Facto arguing over who's apple pie is the best (invariably Aunt May's) by yelling a lot.

@JEB_Stuart: What do you mean? Idealogical rubbish? That's the very point of right and wrong, while all but impossible to enforce, it something to aspire to.

Also, It's commonly REFFERED to as the 'Right to Democracy', all that it says article-wise is that people have a right to help run the country (if they are competent enough for the job), like being an advisor to the king possibly. The 'representatives' could easily be a town mayor that talks to the king. Democracy is just the way that many people interperet it.

With the right to own property, no one is giving something to someone for nothing. It's just that a person has a right to OWN something. If he is able to legally aquire it. Not just stealing it, and calling it his property.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Democracy is just the way that many people interperet it.

Incorrectly.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
With the right to own property, no one is giving something to someone for nothing. It's just that a person has a right to OWN something. If he is able to legally aquire it. Not just stealing it, and calling it his property.

That's a meaningless right.

What? The article? Or democracy itself?

How's it meaningless?

Emperors Faithful wrote:What? The article? Or democracy itself?

Both. No one has the right to run anything. They might have the capacity to run something, or the ability to run something, but they never have the right.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
How's it meaningless?

Because ownership is always based on theft, or basic acquisition, when considered a priori.

...? Okay, I understand what you're saying, but this is about a person CONTRIBUTING to running their government, not a totalitarian rule.

*sigh/facepalm*
I don't believe it. I really don't. So everything, even taking from the roots of the earth. is now stealing?
*sigh/facepalm again*
Plzzz don't be one of those 'Mother Earth is being raped' nuts...

Orkeosaurus wrote:I wouldn't necessarily refrain from petitioning against the move simply because I don't think it's a fundamental right; I would be pretty unhappy if they demolished all of the country's roads as well.

The key difference between a right and something that’s nice for government to provide is that the right doesn’t go away if it stops being popular. A right means you get it no matter what. I think education fits into that category.

"Some people couldn't afford" is an interesting part of the situation; let's look at it in the context of something simpler, like food. How do you get food? The most basic way would be to hunt for or grow food in some fashion. However, this does not require the labor of others; it only requires access to land and resources that have existed on the earth prior to anything done by someone else. Now, clearly, most acquisition of food today (in the industrialized countries, at least) is a result of buying it from someone else. This makes sense, people organize a system in which they can specialize in one occupation and trade with others to get what they need. Still though, if that system went belly-up, it would be back to sustaining oneself from what's on the earth.

But that’s all very much fixed at a hypothetical level, the idea that if you don’t have food you should go out an hunt is nice and all, but what relation does it have to a kid who’s brought up in the inner city? The thing that will really improve the lives of people in the society that we actually is education, healthcare, stuff like that. Knowing that you could go hunting if you didn’t live in a concrete jungle with 5 million other people is not a useful thing.

I should probably expound on my position, then; I think everyone has a claim to the land and resources of the planet. What a good life entails is dependent on your situation, but generally speaking you can live a decent life without the aid of others (ignoring childhood, here). You can live better with the aid of others, and that's why people choose to form relationships, but it's possible to live well while doing all of your work for yourself, and receiving no work from others.

It's not possible to live well without access to the planet's resources; it's not possible to live at all. That may be a form of positive right, depending on how you phrase it. ("I have a right to use this grassland" versus "I have a right to not have others stop me from using this grassland")

It can be negative or positive, depending on how it’s phrased. It would be a negative right if it was ‘no-one can stop me accessing grassland’. That is, no-one could start putting up fences to stop you reaching grassland. It would be a positive right if it was ‘I need access to grassland and if I cannot reach any then I should be helped.’ That is, if there is no grassland near a person, there would be an expectation of government to irrigate land to turn it to grassland, or help the person to an area with grassland.

But I would disagree with your basic approach. Access to natural resources simply isn’t a useful way to start an analysis of rights in modern society. I’m not sure if I’m being unfair to your position but if it was noted that a kid grew up without access to any form of education and was put to menial work at the age of ten, then it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘yes but at any time we would have happily sent him and his family out into the wilderness with a .22 where he could hunt for his own survival’.

You need to start with the way people actually live, and looking at what those people need to have access to if they’re to have a fair shot at a happy life.

This is where economic systems come in; natural resources are scarce (in the sense that they're not infinite, or so abundant they may as well be), so part of the reason states from is to try and manage them. I don't know of any economic system that does this perfectly; capitalism gives the resources to individuals, but there's no method of making sure it's distributed equally. Democratic socialism puts the lands in the hand of the government, which means it's put in the hands of whoever forms the majority at the best of times, and whoever controls the system of election at the worst of times. (In that sense, I think the best form of economic system that's going to be around in the near future is some form of hybridization between the two.)

Yeah, hybrid forms are strongest, taking the efficiency of the markets as the core of the economy, but placing government regulation and intervention over the top to introduce some fairness and remove externalities. Despite the rhetoric this is the form now followed by every developed country, and most all of the developing ones as well.

Emperors Faithful wrote:...? Okay, I understand what you're saying, but this is about a person CONTRIBUTING to running their government, not a totalitarian rule.

You really don't. Any given person, even in a totalitarian state, contributes to their government.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
*sigh/facepalm*
I don't believe it. I really don't. So everything, even taking from the roots of the earth. is now stealing?

Yep, stealing seems to lose its moral force, doesn't it?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
*sigh/facepalm again*
Plzzz don't be one of those 'Mother Earth is being raped' nuts...

No, I'm just older than you are. Better educated too. You'll get it eventually.

sebster wrote:The key difference between a right and something that’s nice for government to provide is that the right doesn’t go away if it stops being popular. A right means you get it no matter what. I think education fits into that category.

I disagree.

I think that as a moral concept, a right needs to be unable to be violated without the actions of another person; since people don't have an education by default, it can't be a basic right.

But that’s all very much fixed at a hypothetical level, the idea that if you don’t have food you should go out an hunt is nice and all, but what relation does it have to a kid who’s brought up in the inner city? The thing that will really improve the lives of people in the society that we actually is education, healthcare, stuff like that. Knowing that you could go hunting if you didn’t live in a concrete jungle with 5 million other people is not a useful thing.

But I would disagree with your basic approach. Access to natural resources simply isn’t a useful way to start an analysis of rights in modern society. I’m not sure if I’m being unfair to your position but if it was noted that a kid grew up without access to any form of education and was put to menial work at the age of ten, then it wouldn’t make sense to say ‘yes but at any time we would have happily sent him and his family out into the wilderness with a .22 where he could hunt for his own survival’.

You need to start with the way people actually live, and looking at what those people need to have access to if they’re to have a fair shot at a happy life.

While I think having natural resources shared is the most "moral" or "correct" form of economics, I'll admit fully that our current economic systems don't mesh with it very well at all.

Because of this, I'd make pseudo-right to replace it, along the lines of "the right to make a decent living through working". In a modern, industrialized country this would mean enough money for food, water, shelter, etc, and access to healthcare and education. (Of course, if a person wanted to spend all their money on candy instead, they could.)

When you bring children into it, you complicate the issue, because they're fundamentally unable to support themselves in the same manner as adults, or at least they are for most of their childhood. Granting them education of healthcare, instead job opportunities, makes more sense, since they can't do the jobs adults can, and they're a lot more likely to spend all of their money on candy.

dogma wrote:
Both. No one has the right to run anything. They might have the capacity to run something, or the ability to run something, but they never have the right.

Thank you Dogma, I couldn't have said it better myself. This idea that every man or woman has the right to help run the government, or any other entity for that matter, is nothing more than a fabricated illusion. A government will function, frequently more efficiently, without the help of its citizens. I will concede though that in the USA and many Western countries we have the liberty to participate in government, and that should not be taken for granted, although we tend to do that all too frequently.

dogma wrote:
Because ownership is always based on theft, or basic acquisition, when considered a priori.

Unless I am mistaken, I think you mean a posteriori, as the realization of how ownership comes about will have to come through empirical knowledge, which comes from experience. But I may be completely wrong. Regardless, I can understand your basic premise on this idea, but I can't necessarily say that I agree with your conclusion. Basic acquisition makes sense in so far as you are referring to a trade of one item for another. But theft I find to be completely illogical. There is no owner of a wild plant or animal, or natural resources, in the sense of frontier dwelling, or pre-history, as they exist outside the realms of an ordered society. Theft, in my mind, would require a specific owner to have something taken away without his/her consent, ie taxes. If you could please clarify your position, I would greatly appreciate it.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Thank you Dogma, I couldn't have said it better myself. This idea that every man or woman has the right to help run the government, or any other entity for that matter, is nothing more than a fabricated illusion.

I agree with this. Though I would like to say that illusions are compulsory, and cannot be dispelled without great effort.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
A government will function, frequently more efficiently, without the help of its citizens. I will concede though that in the USA and many Western countries we have the liberty to participate in government, and that should not be taken for granted, although we tend to do that all too frequently.

The next question will always be: is efficiency the highest ideal of the state?

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Unless I am mistaken, I think you mean a posteriori, as the realization of how ownership comes about will have to come through empirical knowledge, which comes from experience. But I may be completely wrong. Regardless, I can understand your basic premise on this idea, but I can't necessarily say that I agree with your conclusion. Basic acquisition makes sense in so far as you are referring to a trade of one item for another. But theft I find to be completely illogical. There is no owner of a wild plant or animal, or natural resources, in the sense of frontier dwelling, or pre-history, as they exist outside the realms of an ordered society. Theft, in my mind, would require a specific owner to have something taken away without his/her consent, ie taxes. If you could please clarify your position, I would greatly appreciate it.

I mean a priori in the sense that any action is absent justification. As such, when something is taken it is either stolen (not necessarily from another human), or acquired through fundamental action; depending on your own moral bias.

dogma wrote:
I mean a priori in the sense that any action is absent justification. As such, when something is taken it is either stolen (not necessarily from another human), or acquired through fundamental action; depending on your own moral bias.

Ah, very good, that helps to clarify quite a bit. I see your point, and I appreciate your logic, although I don't necessarily agree with it. All around nicely done.

@dogma: I don't know how to respond to this, so I won't. BTW, saying "I'm older than you" is never a decent response. Either justify you're answer or don't bother posting. (Sorry, getting a little frustrated here with your vague answers.) What I will say though is that an inatimate object (like Earth) cannot own another inatimate object. That's like saying that the gold belongs to the mountain from where it was mined from.

@JEB_Stuart: What is wrong with the 'liberty' to have a say in how your country is run?

Emperors Faithful wrote:@dogma: I don't know how to respond to this, so I won't. BTW, saying "I'm older than you" is never a decent response. Either justify you're answer or don't bother posting. (Sorry, getting a little frustrated here with your vague answers.)

I think you might want to reconsider your use of /facepalm before commenting on the conversational ability of other posters.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
What I will say though is that an inatimate object (like Earth) cannot own another inatimate object. That's like saying that the gold belongs to the mountain from where it was mined from.

What would ever make you believe that people are somehow distinct from mountains?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
@JEB_Stuart: What is wrong with the 'liberty' to have a say in how your country is run?

Nothing, but why must it be considered a fundamental right?

dogma wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:@dogma: I don't know how to respond to this, so I won't. BTW, saying "I'm older than you" is never a decent response. Either justify you're answer or don't bother posting. (Sorry, getting a little frustrated here with your vague answers.)

I think you might want to reconsider your use of /facepalm before commenting on the conversational ability of other posters.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
What I will say though is that an inatimate object (like Earth) cannot own another inatimate object. That's like saying that the gold belongs to the mountain from where it was mined from.

What would ever make you believe that people are somehow distinct from mountains?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
@JEB_Stuart: What is wrong with the 'liberty' to have a say in how your country is run?

Nothing, but why must it be considered a fundamental right?

1) My *facepalm* was highlighting my exasperation. You used the whole "I'm older than you so nah" argument like it was legit.

2) People DO NOT = Mountains.
Mountains are inatimate. People/ animals are not.
Mountains do not have feelings/wishes/dreams/emotions etc. People (and I suppose animals) do.
If mankind did not use the resources to our advantge, we would be DEAD. We don't have fur or claws or fangs like the other animals. We NEEDED these resources.
(You are sounding more and more like a "Mother Earth" nut. I'm not opposed to the idea of a kind of 'sentient Earth', but if mother Earth wants to hoard her resources, keep the gold she doesn't use, the plants she dons't need to eat, then she is one selfish BI-ATCH.)

3) It is a fundamental 'right' becuase in an ideal world, everyone would get a say as to how their country and community is run. So that they aren't entirely at the mercy of some obscure dictator who does whatever the hell he wants.

Wrex wrote:So you believe that might makes right?

Personally I do not, but in a more lofty sense I do know that this can be interpreted as a relevant truth to the whole debate. Just because you are right, does not make someone wrong, but it might make them slightly less right on the whole; which could include any number of factors, but it usually limits itself to the larger group in general.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
1) My *facepalm* was highlighting my exasperation. You used the whole "I'm older than you so nah" argument like it was legit.

No I didn't. I was simply being dismissive, and snarky. Neither of which relate to serious argument.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
2) People DO NOT = Mountains.
Mountains are inatimate. People/ animals are not.
Mountains do not have feelings/wishes/dreams/emotions etc. People (and I suppose animals) do.

Why is that distinction important? Do emotions somehow legitimize action?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
If mankind did not use the resources to our advantge, we would be DEAD. We don't have fur or claws or fangs like the other animals. We NEEDED these resources.

So? What makes humanity particularly important?

Emperors Faithful wrote:
(You are sounding more and more like a "Mother Earth" nut. I'm not opposed to the idea of a kind of 'sentient Earth', but if mother Earth wants to hoard her resources, keep the gold she doesn't use, the plants she dons't need to eat, then she is one selfish BI-ATCH.)

You sound like someone who is incredibly imperceptive.

Emperors Faithful wrote:
3) It is a fundamental 'right' becuase in an ideal world, everyone would get a say as to how their country and community is run. So that they aren't entirely at the mercy of some obscure dictator who does whatever the hell he wants.

Why is that part of an ideal world?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wrexasaur wrote:
Personally I do not, but in a more lofty sense I do know that this can be interpreted as a relevant truth to the whole debate. Just because you are right, does not make someone wrong, but it might make them slightly less right on the whole; which could include any number of factors, but it usually limits itself to the larger group in general.

I believe I understand what you mean, though I might come it from a different angle. In general I tend to believe that where right can be legitimately contrasted with wrong there can only be one correct position. However, there are many instances in which right and wrong do not relate conceptually (primarily in matters of morality) such that the entire issue becomes insubstantial.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

sebster wrote:The key difference between a right and something that’s nice for government to provide is that the right doesn’t go away if it stops being popular. A right means you get it no matter what. I think education fits into that category.

I disagree.

I think that as a moral concept, a right needs to be unable to be violated without the actions of another person; since people don't have an education by default, it can't be a basic right.

I know that’s what you’re saying, but I’m asking why? Why add this consideration of ‘rights need to be something you’d have if other people weren’t around’? Why define the importance of something by whether it would exist if we there were no other people around? What value does that add to determining what are the most important rights?

What I’m saying is that that’s just complicating an issue that’s already complex enough. I’m saying that we should start with a very simple metric, ‘what are the most fundamental things that everyone should have in order to have a chance at living a good life?’

While I think having natural resources shared is the most "moral" or "correct" form of economics, I'll admit fully that our current economic systems don't mesh with it very well at all.

Because of this, I'd make pseudo-right to replace it, along the lines of "the right to make a decent living through working". In a modern, industrialized country this would mean enough money for food, water, shelter, etc, and access to healthcare and education. (Of course, if a person wanted to spend all their money on candy instead, they could.)

Sure, and the reality is that in order to give people a fair chance at finding employment that would provide them with a decent enough income to buy food, water, shelter etc they need to be educated. Therefore…

Dogma wrote:I believe I understand what you mean, though I might come it from a different angle. In general I tend to believe that where right can be legitimately contrasted with wrong there can only be one correct position. However, there are many instances in which right and wrong do not relate conceptually (primarily in matters of morality) such that the entire issue becomes insubstantial.

Perhaps my general disdain for fatalism plays a role in my opinions. I cannot imagine a world with only one truth beyond that which we understand to be fact; in this same note you could say that all things contain facts, but perspectives does play a huge role in how these facts actually relate to our lives.

Maybe there is a single answer for every question, but they always seem to only provide more questions, so in this sense it could be considered quite open ended. New answers could in fact negate previous answers by default, but the line which this travels on has no finite limit in my eyes.

I like this photo quite a bit, and though it is not the prettiest thing I have seen, it does carry some amount of truth on it's shoulders; this is my opinion .



Pretty cool though huh?

sebster wrote:I know that’s what you’re saying, but I’m asking why? Why add this consideration of ‘rights need to be something you’d have if other people weren’t around’? Why define the importance of something by whether it would exist if we there were no other people around? What value does that add to determining what are the most important rights?

It's not a matter of importance so much as it's a matter of rights themselves being, at least in my use of the term, a moral issue. Because it's tied to morality, rights only apply to relationships between people; it makes no sense to say that because you're lost in a desert your rights have been violated by space and time. However, if you have a right to water, you're denied your right by circumstance. If rights are moral infringements I don't see that as being possible.

What I’m saying is that that’s just complicating an issue that’s already complex enough. I’m saying that we should start with a very simple metric, ‘what are the most fundamental things that everyone should have in order to have a chance at living a good life?’

I think it's the fundamentalism of rights that we're disagreeing on.

Sure, and the reality is that in order to give people a fair chance at finding employment that would provide them with a decent enough income to buy food, water, shelter etc they need to be educated. Therefore…

...they need to be educated so long as it's necessary to provide them with food, water, and shelter. The distinction is whether it's the end result (decent employment) or what's currently required to get the desired result (an education) that's the right. If it's a decent job with a decent wage they need, why not make that the right? So long as education is a requirement of having that right realized it will be in step with it. If that ceases to be the case, education will no longer be associated with it, and if something else is required it will become associated with that right instead.

Orkeosaurus wrote:It's not a matter of importance so much as it's a matter of rights themselves being, at least in my use of the term, a moral issue. Because it's tied to morality, rights only apply to relationships between people; it makes no sense to say that because you're lost in a desert your rights have been violated by space and time. However, if you have a right to water, you're denied your right by circumstance. If rights are moral infringements I don't see that as being possible.

See, I view rights as a statement by society about the things that every person is entitled to as part of that society. So rights begin and end with a person’s interaction with that society. If, like you said, they go and get lost in the desert they’re not relating to society at all so exactly what guarantees they have as part of that society aren’t really relevant any more.

I think it's the fundamentalism of rights that we're disagreeing on.

I don’t think it’s the fundamentalism, but the place and purpose of rights. It seems the difference between us is really coming down to positive and negative rights, and it’s been interesting to see the underlying thoughts that lead to pretty different views.

...they need to be educated so long as it's necessary to provide them with food, water, and shelter. The distinction is whether it's the end result (decent employment) or what's currently required to get the desired result (an education) that's the right. If it's a decent job with a decent wage they need, why not make that the right? So long as education is a requirement of having that right realized it will be in step with it. If that ceases to be the case, education will no longer be associated with it, and if something else is required it will become associated with that right instead.

I think at that point its just a pragmatic thing. I think it is better to give everyone the same opportunities, help them become productive and capable members of society and then let them go and find their own way to contribute. I think that works a little better than letting people get whatever education they can get, but ensuring them that they’ll have a job at the end of it. I just think economic progress would be better helped by focussing on making everyone a valuable employee, than ensuring everyone a job whether they’re valuable or not.

sebster wrote:See, I view rights as a statement by society about the things that every person is entitled to as part of that society. So rights begin and end with a person’s interaction with that society. If, like you said, they go and get lost in the desert they’re not relating to society at all so exactly what guarantees they have as part of that society aren’t really relevant any more.

So rights only remain constant so long as the society the people live in remains similar?

Orkeosaurus wrote:So rights only remain constant so long as the society the people live in remains similar?

Yeah, rights would change over time as the priorities and other factors change.

The right to equal protection under the law, for instance, is not some inherent thing that's always been there, but as we've expanded and become a more moral society we've come to see that all people deserve the same protections regardless of gender, skin colour or whatever else. So rights have expanded to reflect that.

Other factors can lead to changes. Education wasn't as important in, say, 1850 as it is now. You could have little education and still have a fair chance at a decent life, but now a decent highschool education is important if you want to work in the trades, let alone in a white collar job. So if society values giving everyone an equal starting position, equal access to quality education should become a right.

A few basic rights/laws will probably never change. But yes, most things will change as society does...to some extent.

Seems most of us are on the same page now.

Now that there is some understanding it is time for a problematic question or two.

@Sebster- If Education becomes a right. Then who should be the overseer that such rights are protected and "enforced"?

Next,
Who decides what is to be taught?


Little questions with powerful and possibly disturbing answers.

What should be is the individual

What would be are those who have power.

Orkeosaurus wrote:...they need to be educated so long as it's necessary to provide them with food, water, and shelter. The distinction is whether it's the end result (decent employment) or what's currently required to get the desired result (an education) that's the right. If it's a decent job with a decent wage they need, why not make that the right? So long as education is a requirement of having that right realized it will be in step with it. If that ceases to be the case, education will no longer be associated with it, and if something else is required it will become associated with that right instead.

So you see rights as societal ideals made manifest?

focusedfire wrote:@Sebster- If Education becomes a right. Then who should be the overseer that such rights are protected and "enforced"?

'Overseer' is an awfully dramatic way of describing a public body accountable to a transparent, democractically elected government.

Next,
Who decides what is to be taught?

Public bodies given clear priorities by transparent, democratically elected governments.

Little questions with powerful and possibly disturbing answers.

If you're leaving in a shack stockpiling guns and keeping an eye out for the black helicopters, it's probably terrifying. But for the rest of us it isn't any different to the bodies we have now, just adequately funded to give equal quality to all kids.

Frazzled wrote:What should be is the individual

What would be are those who have power.

Ideological poppycock.

sebster wrote:Yeah, rights would change over time as the priorities and other factors change.

The right to equal protection under the law, for instance, is not some inherent thing that's always been there, but as we've expanded and become a more moral society we've come to see that all people deserve the same protections regardless of gender, skin colour or whatever else. So rights have expanded to reflect that.

Other factors can lead to changes. Education wasn't as important in, say, 1850 as it is now. You could have little education and still have a fair chance at a decent life, but now a decent highschool education is important if you want to work in the trades, let alone in a white collar job. So if society values giving everyone an equal starting position, equal access to quality education should become a right.

I see; we were approaching it from different angles.

I was thinking in terms of what rights would be applicable both to this society and any past one. (Or, if not every society which has existed, the vast majority of them.)

dogma wrote:So you see rights as societal ideals made manifest?

No, not really; there are a lot things considered ideal by society which I wouldn't say you have a right to have.

sebster wrote:

Next,
Who decides what is to be taught?

Public bodies given clear priorities by transparent, democratically elected governments.

Wait you say that and then think I'm the one touting ideological poppycock? How many democracies are there in the world? How many dictatorships?

Orkeosaurus wrote:No, not really; there are a lot things considered ideal by society which I wouldn't say you have a right to have.

When I use the phrase 'societal ideals' I don't mean it in the sense of an ideal life within a given society, but that of an ideal society as defined by that society. As in the right to self-determination when considered vis a vis social force, rather than general force.

Frazzled wrote:What should be is the individual

What would be are those who have power.

This is nonsensical. Individual either exist, or they don't. To claim that they should exist would imply an exercise of power in order to make it so.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:What should be is the individual

What would be are those who have power.

This is nonsensical. Individual either exist, or they don't. To claim that they should exist would imply an exercise of power in order to make it so.

That doesn't make sense. Are you saying people don't exist? Its a simple situation. Individuals- families in this instance- no whats best for them and should be able to chart their own educational course.

What will really happen is that groups in power will decide the education. It happens here, and happanes more so in dictatorships. Farmer Yi has no input into the eductaional system or standards at North Korea High School.

dogma wrote:When I use the phrase 'societal ideals' I don't mean it in the sense of an ideal life within a given society, but that of an ideal society as defined by that society. As in the right to self-determination when considered vis a vis social force, rather than general force.

Ah. In that case, it's more what I'd see as an ideal society than what that society may see; I wouldn't see, say, feudalism as an ideal society even if there was little opposition to it from within that society itself. Or, segregation as ideal even if the majority of the population was in favor of it.

Frazzled wrote:
That doesn't make sense. Are you saying people don't exist? Its a simple situation. Individuals- families in this instance- no whats best for them and should be able to chart their own educational course.

Individuals frequently don't know anything at all. Hence parenting, social interaction, and all that other jazz which facilitates learning.

Families aren't individuals. If they are individuals, then there is no particularly compelling reason to end your understanding of the individual at the edge of the family. Hell, if families are individuals there is no compelling reason that child X should not be punished for the crimes of his parents. Hi there, hereditary right.

On to what I was saying: It doesn't make sense to posit that individuals should exist. By doing so you are necessarily operating under the premise that they don't exist. As such your statement is making an appeal which can only be acted upon through an exercise of power. If power is intrinsically bad, which it must be for your statement to be an indictment of collective action, then the individual is intrinsically bad for his reliance on it. As such, there is no particular reason to favor the individual or the collective.

Frazzled wrote:
What will really happen is that groups in power will decide the education.

Yep, and hopefully they are responsive to those who have ceded them their power.

Frazzled wrote:
It happens here, and happanes more so in dictatorships. Farmer Yi has no input into the eductaional system or standards at North Korea High School.

And? Why is that important?

Because you are saying they are rights then infering those rights are effectively determined by others in power. Thats not rights, thats dictatorship.

Frazzled wrote:Because you are saying they are rights then infering those rights are effectively determined by others in power. Thats not rights, thats dictatorship.

I never said they were rights.

But, yes, what you're talking about are still rights. Rights don't exist without social acceptance of their existence. The second you claim that they do is the same second you render them necessarily impotent.

dogma wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Because you are saying they are rights then infering those rights are effectively determined by others in power. Thats not rights, thats dictatorship.

No, those are still rights. Rights don't exist without social acceptance of their existence. The second you claim that they do is the same second you render them necessarily impotent.

So rights for slaves don't exist? If thats the case "rights" adn this discussion are irrelevant. The rule of gun determines all. Fortunate for those of us who have the guns.

Frazzled wrote:
So rights for slaves don't exist? If thats the case "rights" adn this discussion are irrelevant. The rule of gun determines all. Fortunate for those of us who have the guns.

Pretty much. Though I wouldn't say its quite that simple. Physical force isn't the only means of exercising power, or even necessarily the most practical.

What's interesting about this whole debate is the fact that classifying rights as social artifacts is only problematic if you don't believe that social artifacts can be compulsive.

Rights for slaves don't exist. Thats an interesting viewpoint. Fortunately my religious oppression instructs me that that is not the case, so we must agree to disagree and I am outta here.

Up up and away (translation off to respond to the charge I'm a gun confiscating Obama lover on another thread).

OT but true story. Last semester of last degree. I had been burned out for YEARS. Took Women and the Law on a lark. Went into the class. The class was all women, mostly ANGRY women. There were two guys including me, and I was the only one with an accent. Flipped a coin before class to see if I was going to act the Limbaugh dittohead or Guevara tea sipper type. Talk about fireworks...

@Sebster-

1)Awfully dramitic or uncomfortably accurate. Your arguing symantics on a governmental regular use term in an attempt to downplay the significance of what it means when you appoint someone else to watch out for your rights. When you do such a thing it is the same thing as hopping in a car with a stranger. You are putting your fate into someone elses hands.

2)Where does such a fantasy exist. Any transparency granted by law will immediately be obfuscated by a blizzard of bueracratic paperwork. Name a single american governmental institution outside of the IRS that has clear priorities.
Your answer is ideologically correct but has no basis in the world which we live. Homo Sapiens would have to transcend to another level of existence for that ideology to apply.

3)No, the people living in the shack have already asked themselves this question and done the"Math". These questions are disturbing to the politically and philosophically unconscious masses that just go through their day to day existence. These people don't want to hassle with keeping an eye on what their gov't is doing, thus proving Stalin and Marx right on one of the points were they acrually agreed. Decadent people don't want to be bothered by handling the reign of their gov'ts and will hand those riegns over to the government thus creating the most effective tyrrany.


@Dogma-1 Point I would like to make.

Individuals frequently do know things. If they know less than they should then we can draw a quick line back to the people overseeing the education. People can only know as much as is made available to them under the model of a purely government controlled education system. What do you do when the people who are supposed to oversee your rights start to limit that right? How long before people don't know enough to even be able to stop such behavior?

Frazzled wrote:Rights for slaves don't exist.

It sounds much worse when you put it that way.

In brief, rights only exist in the sense that any given society believes they do. If there is only one society, and that society believes that slaves don't have rights, then they don't have rights. However, it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be one society, so this isn't really problematic except in the sense that it will inevitably lead to violence.

Keep in mind that I don't necessarily believe that rights don't exist, but they don't exist as phenomena arising in nature (where nature is distinct from society).

And as stated we disagree. I do believe there certain fundamental freedoms set forth for mankind: irrespective of position, power, and creed. The right to be free is the the most summary expression of that.

focusedfire wrote:@Dogma-1 Point I would like to make.

Individuals frequently do know things. If they know less than they should then we can draw a quick line back to the people overseeing the education. People can only know as much as is made available to them under the model of a purely government controlled education system.

People can only know as much as is made available to them under any model. Its simply a matter of what is controlling the flow of knowledge, and how that control is being exercised. Though it is occasionally possible to learn more than what is explained via deduction/induction. No amount of information control, natural or otherwise, can prevent that.

focusedfire wrote:
What do you do when the people who are supposed to oversee your rights start to limit that right? How long before people don't know enough to even be able to stop such behavior?

I'll respond in the form of a question: What do you do when economic class prevents limits your ability to learn?

Frazzled wrote:The right to be free is the the most summary expression of that.

But how do you interpret the right to freedom? Even a slave is free in some sense, just as we are all slaves in some sense.

Orkeosaurus wrote:I see; we were approaching it from different angles.

I was thinking in terms of what rights would be applicable both to this society and any past one. (Or, if not every society which has existed, the vast majority of them.)

That difference in starting point probably helps explain often have such fundamentally different views on rights.

Frazzled wrote:Wait you say that and then think I'm the one touting ideological poppycock? How many democracies are there in the world? How many dictatorships?

Going by the Economist, http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_TABLE_2007_v3.pdf, there are 82 full democracies (though a large portion of them are not full democracies), 30 hybrid system with both democratic and non-democratic elements, and 55 authoritarian regimes. I post that because you asked and because it’s a fun thing to know, not because it has anything to do with this thread.

What I’m talking about is being realistic about the role of society in our lives, and being realistic about how government can take a place in ensuring everyone has a chance at a decent life. What you’re talking about is the dream of every man as an island, and it has nothing to do with how the world actually works.

focusedfire wrote:@Sebster-

1)Awfully dramitic or uncomfortably accurate. Your arguing symantics on a governmental regular use term in an attempt to downplay the significance of what it means when you appoint someone else to watch out for your rights. When you do such a thing it is the same thing as hopping in a car with a stranger. You are putting your fate into someone elses hands.

It isn’t semantics because words have implications. When you uses a term like overseer they give a very dramatic implication.

Our lives are in other people’s hands everyday. When you get in your car you should drive carefully, that is in your hands. But there are also thousands of other people on the road, and anyone of them that drives badly increases the chance of you dying. And there is also the issue of the roads themselves, built by hundreds of people, paid for by the taxes gathered from everyone. Or the issue of the quality of your car, from the quality of the engineers designing the brakes, to the quality of the workman installing them, to the stringency and rigorous level of safety testing mandated by government.

To bring it back to education… the future well being of your child is already in the hands of others. You can homeschool your kid and teach him everything you think is valuable, but if that doesn’t align with college requirements there’ll be no degree and no access to many, many jobs. So why not build a govt system where govt develops teaching programs to help homeschooling parents meet those requirements?

2)Where does such a fantasy exist. Any transparency granted by law will immediately be obfuscated by a blizzard of bueracratic paperwork. Name a single american governmental institution outside of the IRS that has clear priorities.
Your answer is ideologically correct but has no basis in the world which we live. Homo Sapiens would have to transcend to another level of existence for that ideology to apply.

It’s an interesting assumption you’ve made, that because you believe US government is flawed, all government is flawed. That yours must be the best, therefore if it isn’t working then the problem must be the model, not your execution of it. Because right now I’m scratching my head thinking about an Australian govt body that doesn’t do what it says on the label…

And no, my ideas here have no ideology behind it. If they did could you please describe what ideology that would be? My ideas are based on the practical idea that we live in an inter-dependent world, where the well-being of each person is dependent on direct and indirect interactions with millions of other people. Ignoring the level of government and social rules already governing those interactions is ideology from the deep end.

3)No, the people living in the shack have already asked themselves this question and done the"Math". These questions are disturbing to the politically and philosophically unconscious masses that just go through their day to day existence. These people don't want to hassle with keeping an eye on what their gov't is doing, thus proving Stalin and Marx right on one of the points were they acrually agreed. Decadent people don't want to be bothered by handling the reign of their gov'ts and will hand those riegns over to the government thus creating the most effective tyrrany.

There is a middle ground between ‘govt is great and wonderful’ and ‘govt is an oppressive tool so let’s go live in shacks in the wilderness’. It’s a middle ground where you recognise the failings of government and aim to government accountability and direct government more closely to the interests of the people.

@Dogma-Good question. What do we do when economics limits your learning ability?

You can write all of the laws in the world to fix this but you will not change basic human behavior. People very rarely will put any real effort into a government job unless they have something to gain.

The people that are in a position to gain do not profit by getting the best for the Tax payers. They in fact have every reason to make sure that the average person remains under-educated.
The job of the public education system is to turn out workers and enlisted troops, not leaders. If you find this hard to believe look at the educational stats from the time the dept. of education was created in 1980 and you will see a steady decline in the performance of the public school systems.

Next question, Who sits on the boards and commitees for the majority of the public schools?
Who controls what books are available to public schools?

Usually, They are upper-class economically with kids in private schools and have nothing to encourage improved importance.

Do these overseers of our education have a constituency that watches to make sure they do a good job?
Do they get pay cuts when performance drops or is there another throw more money at education campain that gives them a Pay raise?
On just a local level, some self-serving lady made the jest that if they improved the quality of the Public education it would only create competition for their kids when it comes to getting into a choice college. She still has the job. I'm not saying that she actually consciously does such but it does show a mindset where sub-consciously she might not do her best.


@ Sebster-
1)As to the symantics statement. Yes all words have implications. Try to be politically correct and in time the new term becomes offensive or disturbing. If I use another word that has the same meaning and your willing to accept it then it is an argument about semantics.

You can try to hem me in by restricting my choice for what word I feel is appropriate but it is nothing more than a red herring to distract from the reality of the situation. That reality being that the government that I am most familiar with(US) calls them oversight commitees. At which point, the term Overseers is the correct usage and title for the group.

1a)Getting into the car is a choice that isn't being forced upon us, there are alternatives, unlike these gov't systems your proposing/defending(?).


2)Very nice way to invalidate your own argument. Just because I reference the US system I must think it is the best even though I am saying other-wise.

Your statement is a debate slieght of hand trick where you say hey look, a stereo-typical AMERICA ***K YEAH type of yank and then try to slide an AUSTRALIA ***K YEAH statement in. Smooth attempt at playing upon the anti-american sentiment but I gotta call you on it.

To set the record straight, and you know this from previous conversations is that I am a political realist that believes most if not all governments are Machiavellian in nature. This sets me up about your ideological statement that was in answer as to who should oversee the right of education.

sebster wrote:Public bodies given clear priorities by transparent, democratically elected governments.

2a)Your statement implies a world where government employees will do their job instead of hiding behind the bueracracy. This implies a world that operates off of the optimistic ideology of a world with no self-motivation.

This is the Ideology of Nirvana, Shangri-la, or Utopia. You can't get much more ideological than implying that a model that would work in a perfect world is the path to take.

3)I agree that there is a middle ground. But, Who decides where the middle is? The answer is that it is not static. Also, there is nothing wrong with being either form of patriot. World needs those extreme ends on occasion.

In reply to this last, another question. What do the people do when the government refuses to be "Directed"?

Studying Human rights here in australia. Basically, though we are a lot better than many countries... *cough* China...cough* possibly America too, just take a look at what is going on with asylum seekers. We're breaking some basic human rights, and pretty much telling the UN to go stuff themselves. NZ is way better...except they don't say MATE. They say bru. That's way such animosity exists between us.

focusedfire wrote:@ Sebster-
1)As to the symantics statement. Yes all words have implications. Try to be politically correct and in time the new term becomes offensive or disturbing. If I use another word that has the same meaning and your willing to accept it then it is an argument about semantics.

No, it isn’t about political correctness, it is about the fact that words can mean the same thing but give different implications. For example, employer and boss describe the same person. Employer is more positive, focussing on the fact that he offers employment. A boss is more negative, focussing on the fact that he tells you what to do.

I have no idea why you’re arguing otherwise, it’s a very basic thing.

1a)Getting into the car is a choice that isn't being forced upon us, there are alternatives, unlike these gov't systems your proposing/defending(?).

I’m proposing a system where access to a mimimum level of education is guaranteed. I haven’t proposed stormtroopers stealing kids away from their mums to make them sit in a classroom for six hours every day, yet you’re pretending like I did.

To continue the above, I’m saying that like choosing to get into a car, you can choose to get your kid educated. If you do govt guarantees the roads will be of a certain level of quality, and that your car will have a certain level of safety. That if you opt in, you should have a right to expect a level of education that’ll give your child the full range of opportunities in later life.

2)Very nice way to invalidate your own argument. Just because I reference the US system I must think it is the best even though I am saying other-wise.

Your statement is a debate slieght of hand trick where you say hey look, a stereo-typical AMERICA ***K YEAH type of yank and then try to slide an AUSTRALIA ***K YEAH statement in. Smooth attempt at playing upon the anti-american sentiment but I gotta call you on it.

No, I made the only assumption possible from your claim. I said govt could work well. You challenged me to name a part of US government that had clear priorities. I looked at that for a second, and not being intimately familiar with the US system thought about the Australian system, and couldn’t think of a single element that was doing anything other than its stated aim. Then I wondered why that wouldn’t be enough to justify the idea that govt wasn’t always wonderful. So I said that.

You felt this was America bashing… which is a bizarre reading of what I wrote. I didn’t bash America, I didn’t’ do anything like America bashing. You claimed US govt departments had unclear priorities. I took that at face value, and pointed out govt didn’t have to be like that. Taking that as America bashing is absurd, and makes me wonder if you’re really putting the effort in to follow this conversation.

Nor was I heaping praise on my own country. I’d think most democracies would be in a position where their govt departments were under control, at least at the strategic level. If you want we can talk about the failings of Australia, Emperor’s Faithful mentioned a few and there’s plenty more. It would probably need to be a thread of its own, though.

To set the record straight, and you know this from previous conversations is that I am a political realist that believes most if not all governments are Machiavellian in nature. This sets me up about your ideological statement that was in answer as to who should oversee the right of education.

You are not a political realist. This needs to be made absolutely, abundantly clear. You are a hardline ideologue. There is simply no way you can begin to understand your place in the political dialogue unless you know that. When you are so adamant about the value of government that you call someone a utopian for suggesting a transparent, accountable government body could improve the quality of education available to all, you are on the extreme fringe.

And that was a nice little twist there, ‘who should oversee the right of education’. It’s almost what I said (there is a right to access a level of education) and so you almost, nearly, slipped it through. Of course, what you said is basically nonsense, as without government involvement there simply is no right to education, just a case of getting what you can as long as someone else is hopefully going to offer it.

2a)Your statement implies a world where government employees will do their job instead of hiding behind the bueracracy. This implies a world that operates off of the optimistic ideology of a world with no self-motivation.

This is the Ideology of Nirvana, Shangri-la, or Utopia. You can't get much more ideological than implying that a model that would work in a perfect world is the path to take.

Now you’re just being silly. The idea I’ve given is that a democratic, accountable government can play a part in enhancing the rights of its citizens. Your position is that no government body ever could possibly be anything but hopelessly corrupt. To be frank, your position sounds like a satire on libertarianism.

3)I agree that there is a middle ground. But, Who decides where the middle is? The answer is that it is not static. Also, there is nothing wrong with being either form of patriot. World needs those extreme ends on occasion.

The world needs extreme ends to the extent that those extreme ends are producing valid arguments with some truth to them. When it comes to the idea that govt by its nature cannot improve things for its citizens, then it’s a big ‘if’.

In reply to this last, another question. What do the people do when the government refuses to be "Directed"?

Vote in another government? Or are you talking about all of government turning bad and putting soldiers on every corner. If that’s what your talking about, what on Earth does that have to do with considering education a right?

sebster wrote:No, it isn’t about political correctness, it is about the fact that words can mean the same thing but give different implications. For example, employer and boss describe the same person. Employer is more positive, focussing on the fact that he offers employment. A boss is more negative, focussing on the fact that he tells you what to do.

I have no idea why you’re arguing otherwise, it’s a very basic thing.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics

Yes, it is an argument over semantics. You can claim, "basically", it is not but the definition says otherwise.

sebster wrote:I’m proposing a system where access to a mimimum level of education is guaranteed. I haven’t proposed stormtroopers stealing kids away from their mums to make them sit in a classroom for six hours every day, yet you’re pretending like I did.

To continue the above, I’m saying that like choosing to get into a car, you can choose to get your kid educated. If you do govt guarantees the roads will be of a certain level of quality, and that your car will have a certain level of safety. That if you opt in, you should have a right to expect a level of education that’ll give your child the full range of opportunities in later life.

1)The problem is that guaranteed can and has been re-inerpreted to mean required. When it is viewed as such then you do end up with an enforced educational structure. You see, I'm not arguing the concept of access to education. I'm arguing that any attempt to establish such as a written law will eventually force the creation of a non-local governing body to oversee the system. That such a body will always be too ponderous and inflexible to meet the needs of the individuals and will only work from the needs of the bueracracy.

1a)I feel that this is more of a difference in length of time as an independent governments. The longer a government is in power the more comfortable it gets in the idea of exercising power over its people. You see, over here we have had the stormtroopers(The forced bussing nightmare). Our government had an ideologically concept and enforced such against the will of many individuals and to the detriment of many children. In my area kids had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to catch a 5:30 bus that did not get to school until around 7:45. Then there was 2+ hour ride home. This was "daily" and there was a school within walking distance. All of this because of an elected official that was an idealist and decided to enforce his personal views. Your model ignores human self-motivation and as such is an idealized structure.

1b)To sum up 1 and 1a, any attempt to legislate morality will, by its very nature, create a system that is inflexible, abusable, and ineffective. It will require constant vigilance to keep it in check and under control, a vigilance that people(With the possible exception of France)generally have been unwilling to maintain for any period of time.


2) You should have the choice of whether you opt in or not but it very rarely works that way. This is so for a variety of reasons that getting into to much detail migh derail the discussion, I'll just leave it at required standards for government accredtitation.

No one really gets access to the full range of opportunities. There are just too many variables, not even the richest get access to all of the possibilities. To try and guarantee such is impractical. Now shooting for a system that is about finding the individual needs of the student and tailoring the curriculum would be a bit more workable, but only on a parent/school level. Any thing larger is too ponderous and will take a mass production cookie-cutter approach. Education systems work better when you keep the government involvement minimal to non-existent.

sebster wrote:No, I made the only assumption possible from your claim. I said govt could work well. You challenged me to name a part of US government that had clear priorities. I looked at that for a second, and not being intimately familiar with the US system thought about the Australian system, and couldn’t think of a single element that was doing anything other than its stated aim. Then I wondered why that wouldn’t be enough to justify the idea that govt wasn’t always wonderful. So I said that.

You felt this was America bashing… which is a bizarre reading of what I wrote. I didn’t bash America, I didn’t’ do anything like America bashing. You claimed US govt departments had unclear priorities. I took that at face value, and pointed out govt didn’t have to be like that. Taking that as America bashing is absurd, and makes me wonder if you’re really putting the effort in to follow this conversation.

Nor was I heaping praise on my own country. I’d think most democracies would be in a position where their govt departments were under control, at least at the strategic level. If you want we can talk about the failings of Australia, Emperor’s Faithful mentioned a few and there’s plenty more. It would probably need to be a thread of its own, though.

1)You could have made a different assumption, You could have realized that I was working from the realistic point of view that people are not perfect and that governments are run by people.

1a)You were not just saying that governments could work well. You were asserting that governments work well without much need of being watched. That once a system is set in place it will function as intended or flawlessly.

1b)Your inability to critique your own government and the assertion that it could be used as justification of a government where everything is "always wonderful", discredits any further argument about the nature of governments you might make.

2)Not a bizarre reading, You wrote:

sebster wrote:It’s an interesting assumption you’ve made, that because you believe US government is flawed, all government is flawed. That yours must be the best, therefore if it isn’t working then the problem must be the model, not your execution of it. Because right now I’m scratching my head thinking about an Australian govt body that doesn’t do what it says on the label…

I believe the government is flawed because it is made up of flawed individuals. All governments are flawed for the same reason. There is no implication of superiority on my part where there is a blatant one on yours. Any attempt to say the, "That yours must be the best" wasn't an attempt to play towards the US is the best Yank Stereo-type is completely shot down by your following statement of everything works exactly as intended in Australia. This was nothing less than trying to claim a form of high ground in the discussion by playing upon a negative stereo-type.

2a)Here you are flip-flopping on your very words fom 2 points before in the last line: "Then I wondered why that wouldn’t be enough to justify the idea that govt wasn’t always wonderful. So I said that." It leaves me to wonder if you are really putting the effort in to follow this conversation.

sebster wrote:You are not a political realist. This needs to be made absolutely, abundantly clear. You are a hardline ideologue. There is simply no way you can begin to understand your place in the political dialogue unless you know that. When you are so adamant about the value of government that you call someone a utopian for suggesting a transparent, accountable government body could improve the quality of education available to all, you are on the extreme fringe.

And that was a nice little twist there, ‘who should oversee the right of education’. It’s almost what I said (there is a right to access a level of education) and so you almost, nearly, slipped it through. Of course, what you said is basically nonsense, as without government involvement there simply is no right to education, just a case of getting what you can as long as someone else is hopefully going to offer it.

1)As to my not being a realist:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machiavellianism
I have never argued against the Machiavellian nature of governments, Just that everyone needs to be aware of this nature and that it like everything else has its time and place. What I have been arguing is that you can not expect amoral governments to legislate morality because to do so is an ironic contradiction that destablizes the entire system.

I belive this applies to you: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
I say that governmant is not perfect and has its own goals that may be at odds with the individual. That it is our duty to be aware of such before pushing for "rights" to be legislated and placed under governmental oversight.
You say that your government is "always wonderful" and should be used as a model for how other government could be so. Who is the ideologue here?

So please try to tell me my place again. I have no illusions or delusions of superiority about myself or my government. I merely look at things with a critical eye because that is my duty when participating in a "democracy"(*Cough* republic*cough*)

3)You sure you meant this line, "Of course, what you said is basically nonsense, as without government involvement there simply is no right to education", This could be read to mean that all rights come from the government. This would mean that every government is totalitarian with some only being more benevolent than others.
BTW, It is funny, We were educating ourselves better in the US before the government became involved. That was because if we wanted it we went out and found it.

sebster wrote:Now you’re just being silly. The idea I’ve given is that a democratic, accountable government can play a part in enhancing the rights of its citizens. Your position is that no government body ever could possibly be anything but hopelessly corrupt. To be frank, your position sounds like a satire on libertarianism.

My position is one with an eye towards human history and the path of every pervious government. Historical track record supports my stance. My stance is that no matter how good the original concept over time it will fall due to that people are corruptable by power and being in government gives them power.
Also, democracy only works in small groups. Democracy has nothing to do with the national level of government. This is because Democracy is a government of the people and by the people. By the time it hits a national level the government becomes to big to be of the people and becomes its own seperate entity with its own seperate goals.

sebster wrote:The world needs extreme ends to the extent that those extreme ends are producing valid arguments with some truth to them. When it comes to the idea that govt by its nature cannot improve things for its citizens, then it’s a big ‘if’.

The definition of improve things is subjective and completely dependent upon the individual citizens priorities. The idea isn't that they"cannont" but rather they won't unless it is a benefit to the government of itself and its goals.

sebster wrote:Vote in another government? Or are you talking about all of government turning bad and putting soldiers on every corner. If that’s what your talking about, what on Earth does that have to do with considering education a right?

Troops being used to enforce government policy through an intrusion into the education system has had a long history of abuse in the US dating back to the Indian Schools. Not saying this is wrong, just to be aware that everything is situational/subjective and trying to legislate such is always double edged.

focusedfire wrote:@Dogma-Good question. What do we do when economics limits your learning ability?

Presumably work, the same thing you would do when the government limits your learning ability.

focusedfire wrote:
You can write all of the laws in the world to fix this but you will not change basic human behavior. People very rarely will put any real effort into a government job unless they have something to gain.

You mean ANY job correct? Why the emphasis on government jobs?

focusedfire wrote:
The people that are in a position to gain do not profit by getting the best for the Tax payers. They in fact have every reason to make sure that the average person remains under-educated.

You need to expand on that. Unless you're going to posit that its in the best interests of any person in power to ensure that anyone who is uneducated remain uneducated.

focusedfire wrote:
The job of the public education system is to turn out workers and enlisted troops, not leaders. If you find this hard to believe look at the educational stats from the time the dept. of education was created in 1980 and you will see a steady decline in the performance of the public school systems.

You'll also see an expansion with respect to the number of people being educated, and the amount and kind of information related to students. The less intelligent outnumber the more intelligent, and so will pull down the average in an environment where excellence is more difficult.

Also, grades mean very little in terms of actual knowledge. Rather they measure the willingness of any given person to do work in an academic environment.

focusedfire wrote:
Next question, Who sits on the boards and commitees for the majority of the public schools?
Who controls what books are available to public schools?

Usually people living in the school district, who take an interest in the education available to the community. This means they tend to be parents, grandparents, or teachers. Unless its a major city, then they might simply be career politicians.

focusedfire wrote:
Usually, They are upper-class economically with kids in private schools and have nothing to encourage improved importance.

That's not true at all. I'm from one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and every single person on the board had a child in the public education system.

focusedfire wrote:
Do these overseers of our education have a constituency that watches to make sure they do a good job?

Yes, that's why people are elected to the school board.

focusedfire wrote:
Do they get pay cuts when performance drops or is there another throw more money at education campain that gives them a Pay raise?

They don't generally receive much in the way of monetary compensation at all. It isn't a full time job in most places.

focusedfire wrote:
On just a local level, some self-serving lady made the jest that if they improved the quality of the Public education it would only create competition for their kids when it comes to getting into a choice college. She still has the job. I'm not saying that she actually consciously does such but it does show a mindset where sub-consciously she might not do her best.

She must be particularly reflective. People coming out of highly competitive environments have the best chance of getting into a highly selective school. Read up on the number of 1600 SAT/36 ACT/4.0 GPA students who get turned away from Ivies due the common nature of their background.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

focusedfire wrote:
1)As to my not being a realist:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machiavellianism
I have never argued against the Machiavellian nature of governments, Just that everyone needs to be aware of this nature and that it like everything else has its time and place. What I have been arguing is that you can not expect amoral governments to legislate morality because to do so is an ironic contradiction that destablizes the entire system.

So you claim to be a realist in the ideological sense. Rather than a realist in the observational sense.

focusedfire wrote:
I belive this applies to you: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
I say that governmant is not perfect and has its own goals that may be at odds with the individual. That it is our duty to be aware of such before pushing for "rights" to be legislated and placed under governmental oversight.
You say that your government is "always wonderful" and should be used as a model for how other government could be so. Who is the ideologue here?

Both of you. Though Sebster isn't claiming that the government is always wonderful. He claiming that it is capable of being useful.

focusedfire wrote:@Dogma-Good question. What do we do when economics limits your learning ability?

dogma wrote:Presumably work, the same thing you would do when the government limits your learning ability.

Well, you admit that the government does limit learning ability. I was actually reffering to the possibility of a system that helps to maintain the position of our societal elites and their families.

focusedfire wrote:
You can write all of the laws in the world to fix this but you will not change basic human behavior. People very rarely will put any real effort into a government job unless they have something to gain.

dogma wrote:You mean ANY job correct? Why the emphasis on government jobs?

Emphasis on government jobs due to the nature of inherent job security(Gotta work at it to get fired) and the lack of a motivational rewards/disciplinary system.

focusedfire wrote:
The people that are in a position to gain do not profit by getting the best for the Tax payers. They in fact have every reason to make sure that the average person remains under-educated.

dogma wrote:You need to expand on that. Unless you're going to posit that its in the best interests of any person in power to ensure that anyone who is uneducated remain uneducated.

Why would it not? If you and yours are at the top what is your motivation to help them take your place?

focusedfire wrote:
The job of the public education system is to turn out workers and enlisted troops, not leaders. If you find this hard to believe look at the educational stats from the time the dept. of education was created in 1980 and you will see a steady decline in the performance of the public school systems.

dogma wrote:You'll also see an expansion with respect to the number of people being educated, and the amount and kind of information related to students. The less intelligent outnumber the more intelligent, and so will pull down the average in an environment where excellence is more difficult.

Also, grades mean very little in terms of actual knowledge. Rather they measure the willingness of any given person to do work in an academic environment.

It is the overall percentages that are the fly in the ointment in this case. The percentages are increasing rather than decreasing. You say grades mean very little. If examination of impirical evidence isn't the way to judge then what is? I would suggest that maybe we look at the number of inane diclaimers that are being stamped upon the products sold within our society in order to protect us from our own stupidity. I know that you were getting at Grades don't equal knowledge. Problem is that the grades are what is used to determine your future opportunities in both acedemic and employment situations.

focusedfire wrote:
Next question, Who sits on the boards and commitees for the majority of the public schools?
Who controls what books are available to public schools?

dogma wrote:Usually people living in the school district, who take an interest in the education available to the community. This means they tend to be parents, grandparents, or teachers. Unless its a major city, then they might simply be career politicians.

The local schoolboards very rarely control what books are available as recognised curriculumn. There is a group of politicians that determine what books meet accreditation standards on a state wide level. Quite often the same group that is playing the shell game with which schools get how much money.

focusedfire wrote:
Usually, They are upper-class economically with kids in private schools and have nothing to encourage improved importance.

dogma wrote:That's not true at all. I'm from one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and every single person on the board had a child in the public education system..

One county does not change the norm. It is rather the exception. Wealthiest counties also usually get more cash for their scools and leniency towards following the limiting state mandated curriculumn. It is why there are so many "Robin Hood" laws trying to fix this.

focusedfire wrote:
Do these overseers of our education have a constituency that watches to make sure they do a good job?

dogma wrote:Yes, that's why people are elected to the school board.

Again, I'll point out that most school boards do little more than set hiring policy and order replacement books from a list created at the state level by politacal apponties or a sub-committee that nobody ever holds responsible for their choices.

focusedfire wrote:
Do they get pay cuts when performance drops or is there another throw more money at education campain that gives them a Pay raise?

dogma wrote:They don't generally receive much in the way of monetary compensation at all. It isn't a full time job in most places.

Was reffering to the people over at the state board of education. Not the local school board.

focusedfire wrote:
On just a local level, some self-serving lady made the jest that if they improved the quality of the Public education it would only create competition for their kids when it comes to getting into a choice college. She still has the job. I'm not saying that she actually consciously does such but it does show a mindset where sub-consciously she might not do her best.

dogma wrote:She must be particularly reflective. People coming out of highly competitive environments have the best chance of getting into a highly selective school. Read up on the number of 1600 SAT/36 ACT/4.0 GPA students who get turned away from Ivies due the common nature of their background.

Having parents that went to certain schools still carries a fair amount of wieght in the admissions process. Also define the common portion of the statement. Could mean that the public education system is doing its job of making the applicants too common. Word play aside you still have to look at the percentages of who came from where that they were actually able to produce those scores.Percentages play in the favour our elite class in this country.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

focusedfire wrote:
1)As to my not being a realist:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machiavellianism
I have never argued against the Machiavellian nature of governments, Just that everyone needs to be aware of this nature and that it like everything else has its time and place. What I have been arguing is that you can not expect amoral governments to legislate morality because to do so is an ironic contradiction that destablizes the entire system.

dogma wrote:So you claim to be a realist in the ideological sense. Rather than a realist in the observational sense.

I have not made a "this is bad" judgement pertaining to this discussion. Merely pointed out the basic nature of things and how some will conflict to prevent the original end goal from being accomplished. Not saying that controlling overseers are bad, just that you don't write morality into law for them to enforce and expect the system to work. Write the laws for the need of the community and be aware that they are witten for that purpose.

focusedfire wrote:
I belive this applies to you: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
I say that governmant is not perfect and has its own goals that may be at odds with the individual. That it is our duty to be aware of such before pushing for "rights" to be legislated and placed under governmental oversight.
You say that your government is "always wonderful" and should be used as a model for how other government could be so. Who is the ideologue here?

dogma wrote:Both of you. Though Sebster isn't claiming that the government is always wonderful. He claiming that it is capable of being useful.

A close examanination of his words implies differently. May have been purely sub-conscious but it is still there.

focusedfire wrote:
Well, you admit that the government does limit learning ability. I was actually reffering to the possibility of a system that helps to maintain the position of our societal elites and their families.

No, I admit that its capable of doing so. Though I'm not sure how you would distinguish an educational system which maintains the position of an elite class (presumably an illegitimate one) from one that simply constricts knowledge. If the system isn't constricting knowledge, and yet still works to maintain the status of the elite, then the elite is legitimate with respect to the educational system.

focusedfire wrote:
Emphasis on government jobs due to the nature of inherent job security(Gotta work at it to get fired) and the lack of a motivational rewards/disciplinary system.

There are a lot of private sector jobs that lack motivational rewards, and disciplinary system. You could argue that they are less prevalent, but that's a much more difficult case than one which is based purely on logical association. Unless you're willing to make that case, we can assume for the purposes of this conversation that a government job is not especially distinct from a private sector position.

focusedfire wrote:
Why would it not? If you and yours are at the top what is your motivation to help them take your place?

The fact that, while power is a zero sum game, quality of life is not.

focusedfire wrote:
It is the overall percentages that are the fly in the ointment in this case. The percentages are increasing rather than decreasing. You say grades mean very little. If examination of impirical evidence isn't the way to judge then what is?

You misunderstand. I don't consider grades to be empirical evidence.

focusedfire wrote:
I would suggest that maybe we look at the number of inane diclaimers that are being stamped upon the products sold within our society in order to protect us from our own stupidity. I know that you were getting at Grades don't equal knowledge. Problem is that the grades are what is used to determine your future opportunities in both acedemic and employment situations.

Are you referring specifically to letter grades (which is what I was talking about), or the broad notion of grading as the result of assessment?

focusedfire wrote:
The local schoolboards very rarely control what books are available as recognised curriculumn. There is a group of politicians that determine what books meet accreditation standards on a state wide level. Quite often the same group that is playing the shell game with which schools get how much money.

The state accreditation board certifies a rather broad set of acceptable text books. However, it is up to the local school board to determine which books are actually utilized in the classrooms. There is actually a lot of local control over curriculum.

focusedfire wrote:
One county does not change the norm. It is rather the exception. Wealthiest counties also usually get more cash for their scools and leniency towards following the limiting state mandated curriculumn. It is why there are so many "Robin Hood" laws trying to fix this.

We're just dueling with anecdotes at this point. Until one of us produces statistics there is no way to settle the matter. Though I sincerely doubt that the majority of school board members are the parents of private school children.

I am somewhat baffled by this notion of a limiting curriculum. The state mandates a minimum set of necessary courses, but there really isn't a whole lot to that minimum. In most of the states that I'm familiar with (Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Kentuck) it doesn't amount to much more than X number of years in broad educational area.

focusedfire wrote:
Again, I'll point out that most school boards do little more than set hiring policy and order replacement books from a list created at the state level by politacal apponties or a sub-committee that nobody ever holds responsible for their choices.

You're really overestimating the actual constriction placed on the ability of individual districts to customize the education offered therein. The list of state approved texts exceedingly long, and generally fairly open.

focusedfire wrote:
Having parents that went to certain schools still carries a fair amount of wieght in the admissions process. Also define the common portion of the statement. Could mean that the public education system is doing its job of making the applicants too common. Word play aside you still have to look at the percentages of who came from where that they were actually able to produce those scores.Percentages play in the favour our elite class in this country.

Common as in publicly educated, non-legacy, or lacking in perceived status. A 4.0 GPA at Mayberry High means less than a 4.0 at a Country Day school.

Who came from where in terms of public versus private, or whom came from where in terms of residence?

focusedfire wrote:
I have not made a "this is bad" judgement pertaining to this discussion. Merely pointed out the basic nature of things and how some will conflict to prevent the original end goal from being accomplished. Not saying that controlling overseers are bad, just that you don't write morality into law for them to enforce and expect the system to work. Write the laws for the need of the community and be aware that they are witten for that purpose.

But you did link to two sources which define political realism as an ideological position, as opposed to an observational one.

focusedfire wrote:
A close examanination of his words implies differently. May have been purely sub-conscious but it is still there.

Interesting stance; considering that you felt it necessary to use the word 'overseer' when describing government appointees. Now, that word itself is quite innocuous, but it can have a negative connotation. If you want people to take your own statements at face value, it seems rather ridiculous to abstain from doing so yourself.

Right and wrong are defined in two manners:

1) A social level, where mankind can work together in relative harmony.
I like these. It lets me have cookies without Wrecksaur smacking me over the noggin to take my cookies. Usually boiled down to "try to avoid being a jerk"

2) Universal absolutes of right and wrong.
Where the universe doesn't really seem to care who has the cookies, so long as the matter is neither created or destroyed. Sadly, these seem to be more... MY COOKIES!!!...

focusedfire wrote:http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics

Yes, it is an argument over semantics. You can claim, "basically", it is not but the definition says otherwise.

You are pretending that words don’t have implications… why are you pretending words don’t have implications? Are you just saying ‘nuh-uh’ just because you think that’s what you have to do in an argument, is this actually a concept you don’t understand, , or are you trolling for funzies?

Because if you’re just saying nuh-uh out of a belief that you cannot concede the slightest point on anything in an argument, it doesn’t have to work that way. You could say ‘yes it has a negative implication, that was intended because I believe the body would be negative. You used ‘government body’ to sound positive or value neutral in much the same way. I do not believe the implication is as negative as you claimed, but obviously you differ.’ We could then agree to disagree over how negative the term was, and move on to the actual content of the conversation.

If you honestly don’t understand, well… Look, don’t take this the wrong way but do you often miss the point in conversations with other people? Do you find yourself understanding every word used in conversation, but struggling to understand someone’s meaning? If that sounds like your common experience, I’d recommend you talk to friends and family about the issue. It may be something you can work on.

If you are just trolling, then well played sir, I don’t think I’ve ever been dragged along for multiple posts on something as silly as ‘words don’t have implications’.

1)The problem is that guaranteed can and has been re-inerpreted to mean required. When it is viewed as such then you do end up with an enforced educational structure. You see, I'm not arguing the concept of access to education. I'm arguing that any attempt to establish such as a written law will eventually force the creation of a non-local governing body to oversee the system. That such a body will always be too ponderous and inflexible to meet the needs of the individuals and will only work from the needs of the bueracracy..

I know what you’re saying, but it is an ideological position with little relation to how the world actually works.

To argue that government tends towards bureaucracy is sensible. To argue that crippling levels of bureaucracy are inevitable so all possible government must be fought is ideological nonsense.

1b)To sum up 1 and 1a, any attempt to legislate morality will, by its very nature, create a system that is inflexible, abusable, and ineffective. It will require constant vigilance to keep it in check and under control, a vigilance that people(With the possible exception of France)generally have been unwilling to maintain for any period of time.

You haven’t really thought through what you’re saying. All legislation is moral legislation, what is a law against murder but a law against something people see as being immoral? The property laws so beloved by the right wing are the very same thing.

Your claim that legislating morality will always create an inflexible, abusive system has no backing in reality. None. If it were true, the US healthcare system would score higher in all measures of healthcare than the public systems used elsewhere. However, despite spending around 50% more than other developed countries, the US scores poorly in all measures of healthcare.

No one really gets access to the full range of opportunities. There are just too many variables, not even the richest get access to all of the possibilities.

True, I was a little loose in my wording (in my defence I didn’t realise such a simple statement of mine was going to meet such strong resistance). I should have said something along the lines of ‘all people are entitled to a minimum level of quality of education, while allowing others to use their own resources to gain a greater level of education’.

To try and guarantee such is impractical. Now shooting for a system that is about finding the individual needs of the student and tailoring the curriculum would be a bit more workable, but only on a parent/school level. Any thing larger is too ponderous and will take a mass production cookie-cutter approach. Education systems work better when you keep the government involvement minimal to non-existent.

That is just a collection of talking points you’ve likely picked up from pundits that you’ve never properly considered.

Look, there are two basic mechanisms for allocating resources to a desired end. The first and most common is through private interactions, typically through markets. The second is government. Through the efficiency of pricing in allocating resources the first is preferred in most circumstances, but there are circumstances where the pricing mechanism leads to poor outcomes. Most commonly, the market fails to account for externalities, or fails to provide at all for people with no money who still deserve the service.

Now, in many cases it is easy to say ‘well if they wanted the service bad enough they now have the incentive to go out and get more money’. However, when it comes to kids dependant on the incomes of their parents to get an education, most sane people think the kid should get than education anyway (as the income of their parents can hardly be the kid’s fault). In those circumstances we have government take a role, ensuring that every kid gets access to education.

It’s a simple thing and while there will always be problems, in most places we’ve managed to have government education programs (either stand alone or working with private sector options) that haven’t turned into giant, monolithic leviathans. You’re freaking out over your ideology, when the problems predicted by your ideology do not match reality.

1)You could have made a different assumption, You could have realized that I was working from the realistic point of view that people are not perfect and that governments are run by people.

I could have assumed that you were working from a fantastical ideology with little or no regard for reality, that’s true. I was being generous is assuming a less ludicrous assumption.

1a)You were not just saying that governments could work well. You were asserting that governments work well without much need of being watched. That once a system is set in place it will function as intended or flawlessly.

No, I wasn’t assuming governments don’t need to be watched. I wrote ‘accountable’ every time. That means they’re watched and held accountable for what they’ve done. You need to follow this conversation a lot more closely than you have been. To be honest points like the above make you look foolish.

1b)Your inability to critique your own government and the assertion that it could be used as justification of a government where everything is "always wonderful", discredits any further argument about the nature of governments you might make.

You say I have the inability to critique my own government, when a paragraph later I said ‘If you want we can talk about the failings of Australia, Emperor’s Faithful mentioned a few and there’s plenty more’

You’re lying, or have the reading comprehension of a seven year old. Pick one.

2)Not a bizarre reading, You wrote:

sebster wrote:It’s an interesting assumption you’ve made, that because you believe US government is flawed, all government is flawed. That yours must be the best, therefore if it isn’t working then the problem must be the model, not your execution of it. Because right now I’m scratching my head thinking about an Australian govt body that doesn’t do what it says on the label…

Yeah, you produced a bizarre reading, probably intentionally to draw the conversation away from a point you can’t win. Think about it… you said government was bad and to establish this you challenged me to give a dept of US govt that did what it was supposed to. I said I didn’t know enough about US govt, but each element of Australian govt did what it was supposed to.

Now, why would I want to start bashing America? My point is that govt can be an effective, useful part of society. If I moved my point to focus on why America sucks that would diminish my point that govt can be good as it would produce the out ‘our govt is good while yours is bad because the US is bad’. That would support your point and justify you not wanting more govt. Instead, my point was ‘we have govt where individual departments act largely as they should and there’s no reason you can’t achieve the same, so if you really believe your govt is so out of control you should check to see if that’s really true, or how you can bring it back into line’.

It’s a simple case of following the logic of the conversation. It is something you are capable of, so when you fail so badly as to assume I was America bashing, the only possible conclusion is that you aren’t really trying to follow the conversation, but are just skimming to find points to complain about. You should stop that, it is ignorant and rude.

I believe the government is flawed because it is made up of flawed individuals. All governments are flawed for the same reason. There is no implication of superiority on my part where there is a blatant one on yours. Any attempt to say the, "That yours must be the best" wasn't an attempt to play towards the US is the best Yank Stereo-type is completely shot down by your following statement of everything works exactly as intended in Australia. This was nothing less than trying to claim a form of high ground in the discussion by playing upon a negative stereo-type.

You need to read up on agency theory. It does a far better job of explaining your general idea. It doesn’t rely on the moral judgement of flawed individuals, and it doesn’t restrict agency costs to government, but any situation where agents act on behalf of others.

2a)Here you are flip-flopping on your very words fom 2 points before in the last line: "Then I wondered why that wouldn’t be enough to justify the idea that govt wasn’t always wonderful. So I said that." It leaves me to wonder if you are really putting the effort in to follow this conversation.

I put ‘wonderful’ instead of ‘dreadful’. A silly error on my part, good pick up there, but I’m pretty disappointed you’re trying to turn the whole thing into a point scoring exercise. It should have been obvious from context that I had meant ‘dreadful’ or something similar. Read directly, it’s challenging you to explain why you think government is always wonderful... which makes no sense given our respective positions in this debate.

So yeah, I made a typo, my bad. Now you’re trying to score points by pretending it wasn’t an obvious typo, which is very poor form on your part.

1)As to my not being a realist:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/morg6.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_realism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machiavellianism
I have never argued against the Machiavellian nature of governments, Just that everyone needs to be aware of this nature and that it like everything else has its time and place. What I have been arguing is that you can not expect amoral governments to legislate morality because to do so is an ironic contradiction that destablizes the entire system.

First up, Machiavelli was recommending an approach and specific tactics to an Italian prince to gain more power. It’s an interesting read and has relevance to modern society, but inspiring fear before love is not exactly an effective description of modern govt politics. You should try reading the book and not going off of on-line dictionaries.

Second up, there is a difference between political realism and what you’re suggesting. Political realism accepts that govt is made up of individuals, and looks to build relationships within governments that recognise those failings. So when I said that a democratic, accountable, government body could do a decent job, I was recognising the political realities that the body would have to be representative of the people and accountable to them.

When you ignored that I’d said democratic & accountable and went on to declare all government inherently corrupt and ineffective, you were following a very crude ultra-libertarian ideology.

I belive this applies to you: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideologue
I say that governmant is not perfect and has its own goals that may be at odds with the individual. That it is our duty to be aware of such before pushing for "rights" to be legislated and placed under governmental oversight.

You say that your government is "always wonderful" and should be used as a model for how other government could be so. Who is the ideologue here?

I didn’t say government was always wonderful. My sentence as written asks you to explain why you thought government was always wonderful. This was a typo on my part, my bad. How and why you’re taking that typo out of context and pretending it means I think govt is always wonderful is odd though. You realise no-one else is reading this, that theatrics will score you no points among our audience of no-one. So why be so disingenuous? You had to know I would pick up on my typo being taken out of context straight away, as I’d know I’d never saying anything so silly. So if it wasn’t going to trick anyone, why did you bother? Why not be honest to yourself, at least?

So please try to tell me my place again. I have no illusions or delusions of superiority about myself or my government. I merely look at things with a critical eye because that is my duty when participating in a "democracy"(*Cough* republic*cough*)

Except that isn’t what you’ve been saying. You’ve been claiming govt always ends up corrupted and ineffective. That is not a critical eye, that’s the fanatical eye of the ideologue.

3)You sure you meant this line, "Of course, what you said is basically nonsense, as without government involvement there simply is no right to education", This could be read to mean that all rights come from the government. This would mean that every government is totalitarian with some only being more benevolent than others.

Uh yeah, rights are basically government recognition of things its citizens are entitled to. If two private individuals meet on a blasted wasteland after the bomb has dropped, there are no rights, as there is nothing to enforce them.

But no, the idea that rights come from government does not mean government is totalitarian. The nature of rights granted, the extent those rights, and the commitment to extend those rights to all citizens at all times are the critical factors in distinguishing a free society from a totalitarian one.

BTW, It is funny, We were educating ourselves better in the US before the government became involved. That was because if we wanted it we went out and found it.

Citation needed.

My position is one with an eye towards human history and the path of every pervious government. Historical track record supports my stance.

Citation needed.

My stance is that no matter how good the original concept over time it will fall due to that people are corruptable by power and being in government gives them power.

Every system has the potential to corrupt. That corruption may be government bloat, it may opening up public goods to control, manipulation and profiteering by oligarchies that is technically the ‘free market’. Your focus purely on govt is mistaken.

Also, democracy only works in small groups. Democracy has nothing to do with the national level of government. This is because Democracy is a government of the people and by the people. By the time it hits a national level the government becomes to big to be of the people and becomes its own seperate entity with its own seperate goals.

Yes, as a democracy involves more and more people it becomes increasingly difficult to represent the interests of every person. This is why we have multiple levels of government, each accountable to their electorates. It is not a reason to reject government, that would be moon logic.

The definition of improve things is subjective and completely dependent upon the individual citizens priorities. The idea isn't that they"cannont" but rather they won't unless it is a benefit to the government of itself and its goals.

Yes, and aligning the goals of government and the goals of the people is what that whole ‘democratic and accountable’ thing was about. Which I put in my first post on the issue. Which you’ve ignored in every single post since.

Troops being used to enforce government policy through an intrusion into the education system has had a long history of abuse in the US dating back to the Indian Schools. Not saying this is wrong, just to be aware that everything is situational/subjective and trying to legislate such is always double edged.

So, just to clarify, you’re saying that you oppose education being considered a right because you think that it might lead to troops coming in to people's houses to make them go to school?

Let us all remember this fact:
Once marriage became a social institution it was inevitable that the dirty GAYS would demand access to it. Bloody marriage, biggest mistake ever.

God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

Orkeosaurus wrote:God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

So who created Steve? If God didn't do it does that mean he has no soul. He always seemed a little off to me, but I had no idea he was the child of Satan.

Steve is gay, so you'd be correct in your assessment.

Orkeosaurus wrote:Steve is gay, so you'd be correct in your assessment.

Really, the parents are to blame. Who names their child Steve and expects them to end up straight?

he's not impressed.

sebster wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:Steve is gay, so you'd be correct in your assessment.

Really, the parents are to blame. Who names their child Steve and expects them to end up straight?

They could have named him Aloysius. Or Elton. How does he play with Alice n' Chains.

whatwhat wrote:
he's not impressed.

Whatwhat wins again

As soon as he finishes wrestling that thar bovine to the ground, he'll deal with this thread.

sebster wrote:

Orkeosaurus wrote:God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

So who created Steve? If God didn't do it does that mean he has no soul. He always seemed a little off to me, but I had no idea he was the child of Satan.

Oh, lets get into *this*.

1: Given a divine creator per
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image
Therefore mankind was made in his image. All mankind's potential and opportunity.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
2 Corinthians 4:15 For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.
Therefore this potential in mankind was created for a greater glory.

So, this deity made the option for its own glory. Since the book *ALSO* espoused the nobility of King David of Israel despite the problems with his very likely homosexuality as recorded in 1 Samuel 20:30-42... either the book is bloody wrong for inconsistencies, or mankind has NO BLOODY IDEA what this purported creator really wants.

"I am always amazed at how the Bible, that portrays my Lord embracing the outcasts, touching the lepers, welcoming the Samaritans, not judging the woman taken in the act of adultery, and inviting 'all of ye,' not 'some of ye,' to 'come unto me,' can, in the hands of a few distorted people be turned into a book of hatred, violence and judgment." J.S. Spong, retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA.

Since I can safely presume none of the folks on this board have killed a person for being homosexual Leviticus 20:13 or any of the other abominations like women wearing pants, we can rightly assume that Sebster is willfully ignorant.
How's that invisible sky wizard helping you out now? Doesn't seem to be making anything more or less right.

2: I thought it was The Cow 2:282 that established women as less than men...but these whole Abrahamic religions confuse me with their contradictions, abrogations, and revised editions.

Edit: edited for an open link.

@Sebster- I know I said before that words have implications but I was reffering to the spoken as opposed to the written. I was also just trying to give you an out because I didn't want to get overly sidetracked on this issue. But you won't let it go so here:The truth of the matter is words do not have implications in and of themselves. They are just words with basic meanings. It is people who give words implications through a conscious act of choice, whether stated or percieved. On the interweb you cannot see body language or hear tone so if it is only your choice whether you percieve an implication in a statement. If some one has an emotional reaction to something that is said, it is their choice to do so, no one else's. They make the personal choice whether they are going to become emotionally excited by the statement. It has nothing to do with the words beyond their basic meaning. When people try to restrict others speech based upon "percieved" implications they are doing nothing less than censorship. Paint it however you might, dress it up as political correctness, it still comes down to a rationalization to behave with an emotional response rather a logical one.

This is not a point to be conceded, due to that if I allow someone else to censor me over something they choose to percieve as a negative I am effectively conceding my right to speak.

I don't recall ever saying having overseers is negative or bad. Now I have worked from the point that they will be ineffective in the since which you wish to use them. There is a difference between a moral judgement upon the group as a whole and an honest assessment of probable performance.

Comprehension is off the charts, usually catch what others miss. Many say things without realizing what they have just said, though. Has this ever happened to you?

The line where you allude to me being a troll is priceless in light of your previous line. The term appropriate here might be projection. Fortunately you have decent health care in auzzie land and should have no problem securing a professional with whom you might discuss personal issues.
*Next quoted point*


To argue that government will not tend towards crippling levels of bueacracy over time unless the people fight to keep them accessible is unrealistic.
*Next quoted point*


The law is the law. Here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/law
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/law
The only mention of anything that would be applied to morality is the part addressing old Judaic law and from past conversations I don't believe you will argue that modern law has its basis in the Old Testament.

I'm claiming that legislating morality and then expecting an amoral governing system to apply said law effectivley, accurately, or as intended for any length of time is unrealistic. The law, over time will be subjectively re-interpretted for use as a tool for the needs of the government as opposed to serving its original purpose.
The US Healthcare system has indeed fallen from its place as a world leader. This fall can be traced back to the creation of the HMO system. A system whos architect was none other than Hillary Clinton.
*Next quote*


No need for defense, wasn't going for a strong argument. I will admit to always having been a little leery of "Entitlements". They seem to become things that people end up taking for granted and then neglecting.
*Next quote*

Nope, My words and points from personal observation.

Next three lines:
1)You ignored the third possibility that people on an individual level are fairly generous and will help support the poor without the need of the governments wealth redistribution programs. When governments step into to these situations they are using public money to do so. Because of this they give the illusion of accountability by requiring that the text books meet some middle of the road standard. By the time these books are reviewed and put into the schools they are already on the verge of being outdated. IMO, this is done for job security. They could write the books with just the basic generic information in them and then release supplements but they don't do that over here, yet. But you said as much in your post.
2)This assumes that the poor will not recieve help from various private non-government charities. Which is what used to happen before the government muscled in.
3)Give it time. If not already so then your governmental systems will catch up to our monolithic institutions over time. This isn't ideology, its just the nature of the beast.
*Next quote*


So it is ideologocial to point out that people are flawed and not perfect. Funny, used to be called a realistic assessment of the situation.

I want to point out that this line contains the second statement that you have made that might be considered provocative. If my simple disagreement in this discusion is affecting you emotionally we can postpone this until such a time that you can comport yourself.
*Next quote*


You make accountable sound like something easy to maintain, this bears no correlation to reality when applied to governments.

Public bodies given clear priorities by transparent, democratically elected governments.

Not every time. This following close enough? Over simplification of a complex subject is not necessarily the best or wisest course.
Third attempt at provocation duely noted and I again offer a postponement if this simple discussion is affecting you emotionally.
*Next quote*


Nice selective quote and attempt to back peddle. I didn't comment upon it because it was an obvious attempt to play both sides of the fence when applied to your previous statements.
You made a line of statements that were clearly from the point that your system of government was superior and "always wonderful". Your offer was buried in the last line of an attempt to back peddle from a statement that taken at literal value came across as a debate tactic employing a popular stereo-type in order to gain support for your side of the dicussion.

Fourth provocative statement. Seriously, if you are having trouble comporting yourself we do not have to continue. To me this is just an enjoyable dicussion, I have no personal investment other than exercising my mind and vocabulary.
*Next quote*


Ahh, ...The I win statement. You claim victory because of your, "percieved" inherent superiority of your government. Your entire point here is based upon your own personal viewpoint of everything is working as intended within your government. Your not going to see the problems if you don't look. You are attemtping to claim my position is unwinnable based soley upon your personal bias. Forgive me if I don't immediately accept this as a credible argument.

Don't know why but your Aussie pride is showing strong. And to the rest, That is not what you were trying to do. You were holding your government up as an example of your stated model in a working form and have alluded to others following this model. The fact that your example is based upon your persoanl bais has escaped you but it is showing in your words.

Attempt at siezing the "moral" high ground through your fifth provocative statement duely noted. I now invite you to go back and emotionlessly, if you are able, read the converstation. I have followed point for point and you have done considerable back-peddling in an effort at damage control for a self serving, we are better, and off the cuff reply you made.
*Next quote*


Agency theory is more for a financial model of relationships between inestors and their agents. There is no need to try and obsure a simple truth with with even more obscure terms. The fact that Human beings are flawed are as close to a scientific certainty as is the air, the earth, and the sun. You can posit a possible theory that states other-wise but the evidence is overwhelming in support of our flawed nature.
*Next quote*


I as that you forgive me if I don't accept the veracity of your excuse when viewed in the light and context of the prior comments.

As to whether I'm making this a scoring exercise I have this question. Am or am I not following this conversation closely? First you say I am not then you say I am picking it apart point by point.

Not an obvious typo when viewed in the proper context of your prior statements.
*Next quote*


I have a well read copy if you want to borrow it. If you do borrow it you find that the first and primary point is that Morals do not come into play and is quickle followed the welfare of the state is the primary and only goal of the government.

Your definition of political realism has nothing to do with the actual definition. I invite you to read the definition again. It is power polictics and is a modern echo of Machiavelli's advice to his prince.

Thing is in your first reply the word accountable was not used in the line that started this.

Public bodies given clear priorities by transparent, democratically elected governments.

How does one ignore what wasn't written? You repeatedly try to cast me in the light of a libertarian. This seems to be some sort of a moral judgement that implies negetivity through association. What have I done that you are reacting with such emotion? Second, What did the libertarians do to you that you feel that they are to be used with a negative connotation?
Did the libertarians run over your pet joey?
*Next quote*

I would believe you if it were for your words preceding the statement, all of them. I am unable to accept such as a typo due to the context of the paragraph and the topic of the preceeding comments that lead to us discussing your choice of words. I find it amazing at how much effort you are putting into the prevarication. It is almost enough to make me think that you believe your own....excuse, thats the word I'm looking for, excuse.
Again, projection.
*Next quote*


Not the fanatical eye of an Ideologue, Just the weary eyes of an old amatuer historian. History shows that every government grows corrupt over time. The architects of our version of a democracy left such instructions to watchguard our government. To do otherwise is a form of refusing to participate in our system.
*Next quote*


I disagree, People in small areas have arranged for education without any form of government because they felt on a personal level that it was a right. Morality and what is right and wrong is a personal decision. Rights as they are only extend from the individuals personal morality. Governments/=morality
*Next quote*

http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000063.asp
Will try to get a better and more current source. Funny, access to statictical data after the creation of the dept of ed are hard to come by. There are hundreds of sites claiming the decline and are using the same statistics to support their causes(Race, immigrant, age, workforce, population levels, just to name a few. If you want I will spend some extra time and try to pin down the source that these groups and colleges are quoting to see if there is an easy to interpret set of graphs.
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No need for citation. I will ask instead for an instance of a government that was free of corruption.
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My focus is on the topic at hand. Your statement here admits to such corruption. It is not a mistake to stay focused. Just because other structures are corrupt does not prove my point inaccurate. It rather tends to support the point I was making.
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Your statement here makes a fallacious assumption that I reject governement. Never said such. I understand and support the concept of governments. Just am saying to be very careful when attempting to legislate morality. That when you attempt such, the system you create to oversee that the laws are enforced will need constant attention and even with such will eventually fail due to the shifting, situational, and subjective nature of what is right and wrong.
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I have already addressed this here. Are you reffering to some point before our conversation? Your first reply to me had no such wording. The wording was inserted into your later replies but only after the dialogue had opened and our points were being discussed. Even then it wasn't untill the las post where you began to edge closer to my point of having to keep constant vigilance in order to maintain said accoutability.
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Go back and reread the statement and the conversation. Was asked about the possibility, I gave prior instance of our government doing such. I like where you try to apply a fear label here. Are you trying to allude to something? If so, go back and reread. I said that there is no moral judgement here just that people should be aware of such things when they try to legislate such concepts.

You see, you believe that rights are a "Gift" from the government and following such a line of thought we have no right or recourse should the government decide to restrict or revoke such rights.

I believe that any rights, such as they may exist, come from and are an extension of the indivdual. As individuals change so will what are considered rights.


Because the dicussion seems to be causing you some agitation, I will now offer that we agree to disagree. That we let this discussion between us come to an end.

Have a nice day, Later.

Sorry for not replying earlier, it's just that I had an hour to kill before seeing Coraline and was skipping through the backpages and saw you'd replied.

Because the dicussion seems to be causing you some agitation, I will now offer that we agree to disagree. That we let this discussion between us come to an end.

Have a nice day, Later.

Yeah, it's good to call it a day on this. Nothing was going to be achieved. But I'll just leave you with one final thought, it is fine to debate things and ending up agreeing to disagree, as I'd done in this thread with other posters. But that needs both posters to show some honesty and some self-awareness. You made multiple points that were simply ludicrous, and would not back down or concede on any of them.

As long as you treat debate as a way of scoring points you'll never learn anything, you'll never expand your views or begin to accept complexity into your arguments. As long as you read all other ideas, contort them into silly parodies of themselves to reject, you'll never question the simplistic ruleset that you've built to explain how government works.

So yeah, I think we can call this a day, and probably a complete waste of time. But maybe you might walk away from this and think that maybe, just maybe you might not have been all that reasonable in your approach to this thread. That in some future debate with someone you might try to explain your ideas, and understand his, instead of trying to find the easiest way to misinterpret a claim of their's in order to score a point. Maybe then this won't have been a waste of time.

WALL OF TEXT, WALL OF TEXT!

Scribbling...in blood...it says...'Save the Cheerleader'...and...I can't make it out...'Save the World'?