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 whembly wrote:

 Goliath wrote:

 whembly wrote:

I'm confused... what are we arguing about again?

I'm sure everyone has benefitted or was impacted by government (state/federal) programs/assistants throughout their lives...

I think the discussion boils down to is by how much and where.

I mean, you have people stating that your children don't belong to you now... (total poppycock btw)

It's not hard to have a skeptical viewpoint anytime someone says "We know what's good for you... nothing to see here... move along."

Except that quite obviously wasn't what she was saying. She wasn't saying that they aren't your kids, but that they aren't solely your kids, and that people should think about children as a whole within a community, rather than just their own.

Do you have kids?

Still... no. The PRIMARY responsibility belongs to the Parents. End. Of. Story.

This idea of "shared responsibility" for these children doesn't work.

In practice, if the parent is responsible, then gak gets taken care of.

If "we're all responsible," then no one is responsible, and gak doesn't get taken care of due to the lack of accountability.

"We're all responsible" is not a slogan for increasing the responsibility of all... it's a formula for decreasing everyone's responsibility, and also reducing the responsibility of those who are actually responsible.

It's a parenting mindset that our modern society is drifting away from, imo.

To clarify, I wasn't saying that I agreed with her, just that you were misstating her position.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Hence why I said I would want to be 100% sure the person is 100% dead and not coming back before pulling the plug.

But according to your beliefs on abortion it is impossible to be 100% sure therefore ANY act of pulling the plug is murder.

Grey Templar wrote:There is a difference between a unborn baby(which is a functioning living human).

Holy gak, I can't believe you'd actually say something that silly and observably incorrect. This isn't even a philosophical discussion now, it's remedial biology.

The very definition of a functioning, living human is when its autonomic nervous system is capable of sustaining itself. I want you to tell me at how many weeks past conception you believe this occurs.

 azazel the cat wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:There is a difference between a unborn baby(which is a functioning living human).

Holy gak, I can't believe you'd actually say something that silly and observably incorrect. This isn't even a philosophical discussion now, it's remedial biology.

The very definition of a functioning, living human is when its autonomic nervous system is capable of sustaining itself. I want you to tell me at how many weeks past conception you believe this occurs.

He hasn't even said at how many weeks/months/years past birth a child has had enough opportunities to quit relying on government welfare and should be allowed to die, I wouldn't hold my breath.

I'm a self-made man I didn't need a mother for my birth.

 Cheesecat wrote:
I'm a self-made man I didn't need a mother for my birth.

Wait... you were immaculously conceived in a tube somewhere?

 azazel the cat wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:There is a difference between a unborn baby(which is a functioning living human).

Holy gak, I can't believe you'd actually say something that silly and observably incorrect. This isn't even a philosophical discussion now, it's remedial biology.

The very definition of a functioning, living human is when its autonomic nervous system is capable of sustaining itself. I want you to tell me at how many weeks past conception you believe this occurs.

Now its what 28 weeks. In the future it will be +1 minute. What happens then boyo?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So you worked in the military? The most socialist mechanism of the entire US government?

Congratulations. Dumbest thing I've ever read on Dakka.

And you want to call me a leftie, whatever comrade. I work in corporate management, like a good and decent capitalist.

Uh huh.

 Peregrine wrote:
I'd just like to point out that while you personally might believe these things are acceptable many libertarians do not.

Again, libertarianism = haven for No True Scotsman arguments.

I don't see how these are sketchy at all. Society has a legitimate interest in encouraging certain things (college education to provide skilled workers and advance society as a whole, home ownership, etc) and the best way to do that is through government support.

Society might, but the government doesn't. It's also very hard to make the argument that we really need to be promoting college. It doesn't have much of an impact on providing skilled workers except in a few select fields. All the guys working for me have college degrees, exactly none of them need them. Hell, I don't need mine, for my job. But it's become such a requirement - due to the emphasis on sending everyone to college, whether they need it or not for their chosen path - that we've created a system wherein it's hard to get by without it.

So where do you think that this kind of protection should come from? Or are you a social darwinist who thinks that anyone who doesn't work should be left to die?

My views are a little more nuanced than that, but we're not an underpopulated, immortal species.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

PhantomViper wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Acting for the "good" is voluntary.

No its not. You are forced by law to do any amount of things for the good of society every single day of your life.

No, laws keep you, at best, neutral. They strive to keep you from doing harm. Suggesting that simply not doing harm is the equivalent of doing good is a stretch, I think, and there's still all sorts of room to "do bad" within the framework of the law. You can be a bad father, an uncharitable SOB, a lazy, non-productive member of society, etc.

 Seaward wrote:
Morality is personal.

Again, no its not.

Morality is a reflection of the society around you. Heck, you have a whole bunch of laws regarding morality right there in the US.

Morality's not personal? Really? Who else, do you suppose, exactly mirrors your morality? You really think you could find someone who agrees with you on every single conceivable moral issue? Of course not.

Laws are designed to allow people to live by their own lights within the "don't feth with anyone else" framework, and anything beyond that is overstepping.

 Seaward wrote:
You can't control human nature through legislation.

I'm sorry, but whaaaaaaaaat?

That is the entire purpose of laws, to control unwanted and socially unacceptable human behaviour...

 Seaward wrote:
Again, libertarianism = haven for No True Scotsman arguments.

You're right. There's an endless list of excuses for why the selfish anarcho-capitalists and social darwinists aren't "true" libertarians, but the "true" libertarian seems to be a minority of self-identified libertarians.

Society might, but the government doesn't. It's also very hard to make the argument that we really need to be promoting college. It doesn't have much of an impact on providing skilled workers except in a few select fields. All the guys working for me have college degrees, exactly none of them need them. Hell, I don't need mine, for my job. But it's become such a requirement - due to the emphasis on sending everyone to college, whether they need it or not for their chosen path - that we've created a system wherein it's hard to get by without it.

1) This problem only exists if you view college as a means to an end (a job) rather than valuing education for the sake of education. The practical purposes are obviously useful (try having a functioning society without doctors/engineers/etc) but society also has an interest in having as large a percentage of the population be well-educated. And unfortunately as high school standards get lower and lower that means college degrees for as many people as possible.

2) This isn't a problem with promoting college too much, it's a problem with promoting it and not supporting it financially. There's nothing wrong with having a surplus of college-educated people who don't use their degree every day, the over-promotion only becomes a problem when the expected degree comes with way more debt than the expected career can pay off. If college was free to anyone with the academic ability to qualify for it the problem would cease to exist.

My views are a little more nuanced than that, but we're not an underpopulated, immortal species.

So, social darwinism then.

 Peregrine wrote:

1) This problem only exists if you view college as a means to an end (a job) rather than valuing education for the sake of education. The practical purposes are obviously useful (try having a functioning society without doctors/engineers/etc) but society also has an interest in having as large a percentage of the population be well-educated. And unfortunately as high school standards get lower and lower that means college degrees for as many people as possible.

That's precisely what college has become for the vast majority of those attending it - a means to an end, because a degree is required for the majority of professional career tracks, whether or not the job in question truly needs that level of education. If you want to go to college to chase an education rather than a job, fine, by all means, but pretending that everyone is capable of that, or needs it, just doesn't jive with reality.

2) This isn't a problem with promoting college too much, it's a problem with promoting it and not supporting it financially. There's nothing wrong with having a surplus of college-educated people who don't use their degree every day, the over-promotion only becomes a problem when the expected degree comes with way more debt than the expected career can pay off. If college was free to anyone with the academic ability to qualify for it the problem would cease to exist.

Well, I disagree with you there. That's simply not the state's job, for a whole host of reasons. Pushing college, trying to make it the norm, has succeeded, but nobody bothered to think about whether or not that success would actually be a good thing. It's not.

As far as debt goes, debt sucks, but no one's obliged to take it on blind. Taking out a bunch of college loans and pursuing a degree in a field that doesn't pay? Why is it the state's responsibility to bail you out of your own decision?

So, social darwinism then.

To quite an extent.

 Peregrine wrote:

1) This problem only exists if you view college as a means to an end (a job) rather than valuing education for the sake of education. The practical purposes are obviously useful (try having a functioning society without doctors/engineers/etc) but society also has an interest in having as large a percentage of the population be well-educated. And unfortunately as high school standards get lower and lower that means college degrees for as many people as possible.

I agree with your overall point, but this (bolded bit) is just outright false. The modern high school curriculum includes things that would have been restricted to post-grad fifty years ago, and college twenty. For all the gloom and doom about the US education system, it's still one of the best in the world.

And the "lowering standards" line has been around at least a hundred years, probably more, and has never been true. Just like people bemoaning a decline in morality. We are better today than we have ever been, and we will be yet better tomorrow. No one should ever forget this.

 Seaward wrote:
That's precisely what college has become for the vast majority of those attending it - a means to an end, because a degree is required for the majority of professional career tracks, whether or not the job in question truly needs that level of education. If you want to go to college to chase an education rather than a job, fine, by all means, but pretending that everyone is capable of that, or needs it, just doesn't jive with reality.

I won't dispute that there are people going to college just because the unemployment rate is high enough that employers are free to require a college degree for no reason beyond reducing the pool of applications. However, I said that society has an interest in promoting college education, NOT that society has an interest in promoting college education for every single citizen.

Well, I disagree with you there. That's simply not the state's job, for a whole host of reasons. Pushing college, trying to make it the norm, has succeeded, but nobody bothered to think about whether or not that success would actually be a good thing. It's not.

That's a false dilemma. We don't have to choose between not supporting it at all and supporting it for every single person. For example, making college free for people who qualify but making the admission requirements more demanding might actually reduce the number of college graduates, but it would ensure that society gets the college graduates that it benefits from without the crippling debt that far too many students end up with.

As far as debt goes, debt sucks, but no one's obliged to take it on blind. Taking out a bunch of college loans and pursuing a degree in a field that doesn't pay? Why is it the state's responsibility to bail you out of your own decision?

1) I never said it was the state's responsibility to fund degrees in every single field for every single student who wants one. Society certainly has an interest in giving more funding to engineering programs than to thousands of redundant degrees in an obscure field of foreign literature, or "business" degrees which are little more than an opportunity to attend college parties for a few years.

2) You're ignoring the value of education for the sake of education. IMO having a better-educated population is a good thing, and so society has an interest in providing some support (even if not for every single person who wants it) to academic fields that aren't inherently profitable.

To quite an extent.

At least you're honest about your morally appalling beliefs.

Seaward wrote:

So, social darwinism then.

To quite an extent.

From this comment alone, I can tell that you're a white Christian male of fairly good health.

And I'm going to guess you born in an upper middleclass family, though I'm not 100% sure on that spot.

 LoneLictor wrote:
From this comment alone, I can tell that you're a white Christian male of fairly good health.

And I'm going to guess you born in an upper middleclass family, though I'm not 100% sure on that spot.

I'm a white atheist in excellent health.

I was born lower middle class, and was shockingly poor for a fair amount of my 20s. If your overall point was that I'm well-off now, well, I won't lie. Sure am.

 Seaward wrote:

 LoneLictor wrote:
From this comment alone, I can tell that you're a white Christian male of fairly good health.

And I'm going to guess you born in an upper middleclass family, though I'm not 100% sure on that spot.

I'm a white atheist in excellent health.

I was born lower middle class, and was shockingly poor for a fair amount of my 20s. If your overall point was that I'm well-off now, well, I won't lie. Sure am.

Damn, I got the religion part wrong.

I mean, I've never had perfect aim when it comes to economic standing, but when it comes to religion I'm almost always right. The only subject I'm better at is gender and race (which is pretty easy).

So, regarding your social Darwinist leanings. Would you find it acceptable if a man was struck by lightning, lost his job as a result of his injuries, and starved to death in the streets? Similarly, what if a black women couldn't find a job due to discrimination, and couldn't afford to feed her kids? Most Social Darwinists, being white middle-class men, assume that life is fair and that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. You seem like you aren't that naive, and you understand that life isn't fair. So how do you justify the less fortunate being left to starve, when there's enough food to feed them if we share?

 LoneLictor wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 LoneLictor wrote:
From this comment alone, I can tell that you're a white Christian male of fairly good health.

And I'm going to guess you born in an upper middleclass family, though I'm not 100% sure on that spot.

I'm a white atheist in excellent health.

I was born lower middle class, and was shockingly poor for a fair amount of my 20s. If your overall point was that I'm well-off now, well, I won't lie. Sure am.

Damn, I got the religion part wrong.

I mean, I've never had perfect aim when it comes to economic standing, but when it comes to religion I'm almost always right. The only subject I'm better at is gender and race (which is pretty easy).

So, regarding your social Darwinist leanings. Would you find it acceptable if a man was struck by lightning, lost his job as a result of his injuries, and starved to death in the streets? Similarly, what if a black women couldn't find a job due to discrimination, and couldn't afford to feed her kids? Most Social Darwinists, being white middle-class men, assume that life is fair and that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. You seem like you aren't that naive, and you understand that life isn't fair. So how do you justify the less fortunate being left to starve, when there's enough food to feed them if we share?

They can always sell organs to mobsters. If they're crafty, it doesn't even have to be their own!



The more I see, the more I come to think that genuine success is predicated upon personal strength, whether this strength is acquirable or randomly inherent to some people, more than it is on luck. Not corporate-ladder-climbing-parasite success, mind you.

Of course, at the same time, I fervently believe that it is the state's place to protect its citizenry from malevolent entities, be they other citizens, corporations, activist organizations, or other states, as well as to promote the general welfare of the populace, which includes doing everything possible to foster strength in individuals.

 LoneLictor wrote:

Damn, I got the religion part wrong.

I mean, I've never had perfect aim when it comes to economic standing, but when it comes to religion I'm almost always right. The only subject I'm better at is gender and race (which is pretty easy).

So, regarding your social Darwinist leanings. Would you find it acceptable if a man was struck by lightning, lost his job as a result of his injuries, and starved to death in the streets? Similarly, what if a black women couldn't find a job due to discrimination, and couldn't afford to feed her kids? Most Social Darwinists, being white middle-class men, assume that life is fair and that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. You seem like you aren't that naive, and you understand that life isn't fair. So how do you justify the less fortunate being left to starve, when there's enough food to feed them if we share?

Don't you think a better question, though, would be how do you justify it? I'll go out on a limb here and assume that you're not part of any revolutionary movements to overthrow the majority of the Western world, which suggests, to me, that though you may not be intellectually comfortable with the notion that children are dying of starvation every day in the third world - and right here at home, for that matter - you're not overly keen on doing much beyond slacktivism and voting to correct it. Saying that you stand opposed to such unfairness is a conscience salve, I think, nothing more, because in the end, what does it really do? And, hey, fair enough. There's some realism under the idealism, and that's good enough for me.

Bad things can happen to anybody, and anybody can win the lottery. There's no "good things to good people, bad things to bad people" nonsense. It just doesn't work like that. Some people are more fit to thrive than others though, and pretending otherwise is just disingenuous.

Evolution isn't a moral process. Being "more fit to thrive" in an environment (remembering, of course, that evolution isn't a process of lesser to greater, it is a process of less adapted to the current environment to more adapted to the current environment) does not make someone or something better than something that is less "fit to thrive" in that environment.

HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Evolution isn't a moral process. Being "more fit to thrive" in an environment (remembering, of course, that evolution isn't a process of lesser to greater, it is a process of less adapted to the current environment to more adapted to the current environment) does not make someone or something better than something that is less "fit to thrive" in that environment.

Morality is derived in large part from fitness to the situation, though that is of course a gross oversimplification. Evolution as pertaining to humans is outmoded, however, as we may undergo greater, rationally driven change within a fraction of a percent of our lives as may be had in hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. The sum of human advancement in the past century dwarfs the sum of all life on earth previously, though it is of course predicated upon it. The next twenty or thirty years will see this done again.

 Seaward wrote:

No, laws keep you, at best, neutral. They strive to keep you from doing harm. Suggesting that simply not doing harm is the equivalent of doing good is a stretch, I think, and there's still all sorts of room to "do bad" within the framework of the law. You can be a bad father, an uncharitable SOB, a lazy, non-productive member of society, etc.

No, you have several example of laws that force you to do active good for your society.

Forcing you to pay your taxes is a law that actively forces you to redistribute your wealth amongst those that are less fortunate than you, for example.

Picking up your own examples, if you are a bad enough father, the law will take away your children and even send you to prison for it, so you could say that the law is forcing you to be a good father.

Also, just because some or even most laws only require you to "do no harm" so to speak, doesn't mean that there aren't laws that force you to actively be a productive member of society = doing good.

 Seaward wrote:

Morality's not personal? Really? Who else, do you suppose, exactly mirrors your morality? You really think you could find someone who agrees with you on every single conceivable moral issue? Of course not.

Laws are designed to allow people to live by their own lights within the "don't feth with anyone else" framework, and anything beyond that is overstepping.

A person doesn't have to exactly mirror your morality for morality to be a product of society that is a false argument.

Why do you think female castration is an accepted practice in some regions of Africa but completely abhorrent to most western nations? Do you think that those Africans are worse persons, morally, than you?

Why is the stoning of women condoned in Islamic countries? Why is gay marriage allowed in most European Nations but looked down as immoral in some US States?

Your sense of morality isn't your own. It is a product of your upbringing, your religion and the people that you relate to regularly: i.e. the society that you live in.

 Seaward wrote:

That is the purpose of laws, yes. To limit certain human behaviors. They do nothing at all to change or control human nature.

Now, english isn't my first language, but I'm pretty sure that if you "limit" something, then you are "controling" it...

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Sure, your children are your own. But you are not allowed to commit murder for any reason. Thus Abortion shouldn't be legal.

Since when does "murder" include things that have less mental capacity than a cockroach? Or will squishing cockroaches be illegal in the libertarian utopia? I sure hope the free market decides to provide cockroach-free houses for everyone...

Since when is brain processing power the determiner of if something is human or not? Or do you advocate the killing of mentally slowed people?

Where do you draw the line? I prefer to play it way safe, a human is a human. Regardless of what their brain functions are.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Healthcare is a very personal thing. Its different from the above where the person doing the job protects massive numbers of the populace. Some guy getting state funded cancer treatment does diddly squat for me, the Police keeping criminals off the street does directly benifit me. As does the Fire Department putting out the fire next door.

That's a rather selfish ideology. Just one question though: if you get cancer and can't afford the proper treatment will you accept government help or decline it and allow yourself to die in a horrible painful way?

Sure, because I'm selfish and will do whats best for me in that moment.

And there's a difference between the government providing healthcare and the government forcing you to get healthcare. I wouldn't mind an optional government healthcare plan if I'm not going to be forced to buy it, or even being forced to get a private healthcare plan.

Do you approve the government forcing you to pay for the highways system, the armed forces, the police and criminal justice apparatus, the border guards, fire service, schools, drug and food safety testing, and licensing for handling of nuclear and toxic chemicals?

Would it be better if all these non-essential services were organised by opt-in private companies?

 Seaward wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

So you worked in the military? The most socialist mechanism of the entire US government?

Congratulations. Dumbest thing I've ever read on Dakka.

That is neither a counter or an argument, you appear to be in retreat.

You worked for the armed services, you were paid by the government to enforce it's will.

You chime on about the ideas of public healthcare, education and other bodies being 'socialist' and that I am a 'red' for wanting them, yet you were a part of and seem to support another body that functions on the grand scale in exactly the same way.

Your argument is hypocritical. Your only counter is to claim what I've said is dumb... laughable. You've not sense enough to see that you are living by a double standard.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

That is neither a counter or an argument, you appear to be in retreat.

You worked for the armed services, you were paid by the government to enforce it's will.

You chime on about the ideas of public healthcare, education and other bodies being 'socialist' and that I am a 'red' for wanting them, yet you were a part of and seem to support another body that functions on the grand scale in exactly the same way.

Your argument is hypocritical. Your only counter is to claim what I've said is dumb... laughable. You've not sense enough to see that you are living by a double standard.

This would all probably be fairly close to true if it wasn't an admitted tenet of libertarianism that providing for the common defense in the form of a military is, in fact, one of the government's intended functions.

If you genuinely don't know even the basic facts, and just want to rant on about how awesome socialism is, why even bother with the red herring thread title?

Yes, but why?

Why pick the military and not public health?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, but why?

Why pick the military and not public health?

Because the military's constitutional, for one. It's also something that can't be handled by the private sector.

 Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, but why?

Why pick the military and not public health?

Because the military's constitutional, for one. It's also something that can't be handled by the private sector.

Well, the Air Force isn't even in the constitution but we still have all those pesky planes flying around.

 Seaward wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, but why?

Why pick the military and not public health?

Because the military's constitutional, for one. It's also something that can't be handled by the private sector.

But why is it constitutional?

The point I an trying to make is that you can and should make choices about these things based on efficiency, accountability and so on. Then make laws to reflect those choices.

 d-usa wrote:
Well, the Air Force isn't even in the constitution but we still have all those pesky planes flying around.

That it is not in the Constitution doesn't make it unconstitutional. See: abortion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
But why is it constitutional?

Because it's explicitly stated in the Constitution that providing for the common defense is part of the government's job.

The point I an trying to make is that you can and should make choices about these things based on efficiency, accountability and so on. Then make laws to reflect those choices.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you arguing that government is more efficient than the private sector? Because...Jesus, if so.

 Seaward wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Well, the Air Force isn't even in the constitution but we still have all those pesky planes flying around.

That it is not in the Constitution doesn't make it unconstitutional. See: abortion.

Right to Privacy is in the constitution. See: Supreme Court and the Bill of Rights.