JMeganSnow

Of course they talk about justice. This is not the same thing as saying that their proposed system would actually function to promote justice in human relationships. Instead, it would function to promote the destruction of justice. Goodness, what rationalism. History has shown time and again that you don't need a free market in order to have a government. Totalitarian countries have no free market, and THEY have a government--they have a government so oppressive it controls every aspect of the daily lives of the citizenry. The market is not the only wealth-generating mechanism possible, it is merely the only properly rights-respecting and efficient method. Slavery can support a government as well. But it is impossible to have a free market *without* a rights-respecting government. They have anarchy in Somalia (some Libertarians even describe it as a "paradise"), but there is no free market there. Just various competing gangs robbing each other and passing ships. Hence why the anarcho-capitalists aren't in a hurry to move to Somalia even though it represents the practical application of their erroneous vision.

Do you *like* being alive? Yes? There you go.

The article you quoted didn't say "sexual assault". It said, specifically, "sexual misconduct" which is an entirely different kettle of fish. The men you were talking about who weren't booted out of the military were not charged with aggravated assault. They weren't charged with assault. They were charged with misconduct. Indecent exposure does indeed fall under misconduct. This is why I empathize with the commanding officers who, from my personal experience, actually do a pretty good job. They deal constantly with people like you who don't know what the terminology means, don't know the relevant statistics or grasp their relation to other similar statistics, and blow anything even distantly relating to sex so completely out of proportion that the victims of actual crimes wind up getting disregarded in the flood of inane hysterics. The only thing sexual assault statistics serve to demonstrate nowadays is that people are bloody stupid, men and women both. If you're the kind of person who worries about this sort of thing, the first line of defense is to take pains not to be bloody stupid. Among people of both sexes who do this, the rate of any kind of assault is incredibly low.

You are aware that what these polls "consider" rape and the legal definition of sexual assault don't match up. Oh, and "sexual misconduct" is NOT RAPE. This could mean something as simple as walking naked through the barracks. Heck, it doesn't even say that the guy had a NON-CONSENSUAL relationship with a trainee. It may even have been her idea, but when you're the trainer you are responsible for the consequences under military law. And "what you read" was ONE formal complaint. Surely that's statistically significant and utterly definitive regarding how seriously the entire military takes the matter. Let's exercise some critical thinking skills before we fly off the handle, here. I grew up on an Army post, and the soldiers were all, every last one of them, unfailingly polite and respectful. So based on my obviously statistically significant experience, it must all be hogwash. Honestly. I empathize with the commanders out there who have to deal with this shite and wind up wanting all women out of the military. I really do. Granted, this policy would probably not simplify matters any. All-male units harass each other just as much as they harass women. And most of them are quite young and incredibly stupid.

You can't go to jail over this kind of thing in the U.S.. In the very worst case scenario, you *might* get fired, and even this is highly unlikely. Even if you were to get fired it would make absolutely no difference whatsoever because companies of this type never pass along information about your performance to other companies because this exposes their company to legal liability. Irregularities of this sort are absolutely endemic in business. So, ultimately, this is how you deal with it: 1. Do what your boss told you to do. 2. Take your money. 3. Look for a better job when/as you can. The only reason why those time sheets say what they do and why they even care about how many hours you work is because of regulations about full vs. part time and providing benefits and so forth. They are worried that YOU might sue THEM, and if you should do so the statement that you "certify the hours on the sheet to be true" will cover their ass should you claim in court that you worked a different number of hours. Really and truly you have no reason to worry about THEM hassling YOU. If your boss ever gets around to asking you a direct question, just ask confused and go along with whatever the new instructions are. Welcome to the working world. Yes, it really is this dumb.

Others in the thread have pretty much pointed out the main flaws with this kind of argument. They aren't logical flaws per se--the argument can be fully internally consistent without in any way, shape, or form describing anything that exists in reality. They are flaws in reasoning. To reason properly, you have to start with data. What is the data in this case? Well, first off, you start with the notion that life arises on a given planet due to the operation of natural processes whereby amino acids combine to form complex molecules that can perform myriad functions and eventually lead to the development of cells etc. (I'm simplifying a bit here because I don't know all the details and they're not important to the analysis of method. However, amino acid chains are enormously long and complex molecules. ENORMOUSLY. So much so, that, yes, the number of possible combinations exceeds the number of atoms in the known Universe. The person making the claim that life must therefore be extremely rare is using these assumptions, then: 1. Amino acid chains developing into life is a completely random lottery. 2. There is only ONE combination out of ALL the possible ones that can lead to the existence of life. 3. Therefore, the chances of life developing on a given planet are equal to 1/N, N being all the possible combinations of these amino acids. 4. There just flat out aren't enough planets in the universe for this lottery to conceivably hit twice. But these are all assumptions. They're not facts. Nobody yet knows precisely the process by which amino acids forming complex molecules creates life. It could be the case that there are billions upon trillions of possible combinations that work. It could be the case that the sequencing is totally not random in any way. It may even be the case that given the right kinds conditions where these molecules can form, the development of life is nearly *assured*. Considering how many researchers have managed to replicate this complex-molecule-forming process in the lab in an amazingly short amount of time, this may indeed be the case. Assumptions of this kind, which are not tied to any facts or data, have a particular epistemological status: they are arbitrary. They have exactly the same value as any other random thought pulled out of the air, which is to say, none. No meaning can be ascribed to them, and no meaning can be ascribed to any "conclusions" derived from them regardless of the quality of the logic involved. The people talking about this issue are, literally, inventing things out of thin air. There is no need to try and disprove their random maunderings because they have yet to even enter into the universe of proof.

Well said. One does not deduce correct actions from floating abstractions like "it's immoral to accept the unearned". One arrives at the principle via a process of induction from facts. Thus one doesn't become stuck in some kind of unresolvable linguistic deadlock about what "unearned" actually means. This also helps one avoid the bad habit of constructing bizarre hypotheticals as if they had any kind of importance as a general guide to conduct.

The government should perform all the functions it has under any other circumstances, namely, what is necessary to protect the rights of the citizens. In philosophical terms there is no difference between the situation that pertains prior to the disaster and the one that pertains after it. You aren't suddenly living in a different metaphysical universe because there was a nasty storm, so why should the functions of government be any different? Granted, more police or even military troops acting as police might be required to maintain order in the conditions left behind by a major disaster. But that's as far as it goes or should go. That's not to say that the police and troops can't pitch in to help with the cleanup, but it needs to be recognized that if they do so it falls outside the bounds of their official capacity and authority. So, should private citizens desire to chase them off or take over the task themselves, the police and troops are legally obligated to let them. And, sure, there's no reason why the President, acting as a prominent private citizen, couldn't make announcements or encourage certain efforts. What he doesn't have the power to do is to issue edicts. The POTUS would have precisely as much legal authority over the cleanup as any other private citizen who was interested in helping.

It's been my personal experience with anarcho-capitalists that their political philosophy contains no functional framework for justice whatsoever. They have some floating abstractions that are not tied in any way whatsoever to the ways people actually interact in the real world. Their ideas about the function of government boil down to some badly oversimplified statements. In the mind of an anarcho-capitalist, you get a progression very much like the following: 1. Force in human relationships is bad. (This is sometimes restated as "the non-aggression principle".) 2. Government is force. 3. Therefore government is bad. 4. But it's a necessary evil. 5. So, can we construct some kind of non-force government? We can have a non-force economy by letting the market work, i.e. Capitalism. How about we apply this to government? People can shop for government like they shop for shoes, and if they don't like one, they can switch to another one. They can vote with their feet! And that's about as sophisticated as it gets, granted with a great deal more verbiage involved. There's no reference to justice, and for good reason--because this type of "government" would utterly prevent the exercise of justice in human relationships. For example, today, I feel like taking my neighbor's stuff, but this government won't let me. So I join another government that will. What mechanism would prevent this? Governments cannot compete on the free market because the existence of a free market presupposes the existence of a government that protects property rights. Anarcho-capitalism isn't based on reason or logic, but on an emotional feeling that all government is dangerous and unstable (which is true) and that correcting a government gone wrong often involves terrible bloodshed, misery, and destruction. So the anarcho-capitalists are looking for a shortcut to keep government on a leash, one they think will operate automatically the way the free market does over the long term. Since they grasp some concepts of capitalism, particularly the idea that the functions of a market serve to keep businesses in check without government control or regulation over the economy, they try to go backwards and apply this principle to government itself. They don't understand that it is the government's removal of force from the relationships that make up the "market" that allows business relationships to be self-regulating in this fashion. You can't remove force from government, though, because government *is* force. The proper term for competing governments is not "anarcho-capitalism" but "gang warfare".

Ugh, some people never comprehend any kind of functional epistemology. I've seen this type of discussion before, and I sympathize. But, yes, if you assume a bunch of junk not backed up by any data, you could come to this "conclusion"--there are, in theory, more "possible" ways for organic molecules to form than there are (in theory, anyway) atoms in the known universe. But then, this assumes that, say, all combinations are equally likely, that events are random instead of causal, that we know ALL the causal factors involved (a claim which is laughable in any field today), etc. etc, etc. Anyway, if you're going to study Objectivism, concentrate on epistemology. This is where Objectivism differs most from other philosophies and (not surprisingly) the point of greatest importance in understanding and apply Objectivism. You will wind up ass-over-teakettle in the ditch 99% of the time if you try to argue any application of Objectivism without a solid grasp of the epistemology.

Yeah, this is such an absurd criticism it's hardly worth addressing. But go ahead and try to demonstrate that the range of good health is "unlimited". I postulate some limitations here: Rotten Teeth Excess adipose tissue (as a symptom of underlying ill health--some people are naturally curvier than others) Skin lesions Dried-out, split hair Fungus-infected nails So, those being things that can objectively knock you out of being beautiful, possessing the converse adds to your beauty. If you have superb teeth, are athletically lean and muscular, have flawless skin, great hair, and well-maintained nails. These are all objectively good things. The greater the degree to which you have them, the more beautiful you are, objectively. Now, what IS subjective in beauty is things like, what's your hip-to-bust ratio? Do you have long legs? A strong jawline? Stubby hands? These are personal preferences.

This is, among other things, a massive confusion as to just what an "ultimate" value means. The ultimate value, your own life, by its presence or absence sets the stage for all other values and underlies them. So, say, if you love someone, implicit in that fact is that you are alive to love them and you love them BECAUSE they improve your life. Is it possible that you might find the state of your life without them undesirable? Yes, but this doesn't make them your ultimate value--their presence or absence *changes* the value you place on your life. It doesn't *replace* your life. You don't gain the ability to die and keep valuing them. The causal relationship has not changed. Also, it's kind of silly to think that loving someone entails slavishly obeying their every whim and placing their judgment above your own. If you love someone and they're wrong, you'll disagree with them and argue with them *because* you love them and because you wish them well. Doing whatever random crap they claim to want is hardly the way to do well by them. Or, as Ayn Rand so succinctly put it: you cannot say "I love you" without first saying "I". Also, just because something is your overall highest priority value-wise doesn't mean that other things will not frequently take precedence over them. The fact that you love someone doesn't change the fact that you have to eat in order to live. The relative priority of these two things in your value hierarchy (food vs. lover) means that you will only devote a certain minimum amount of time/energy to food, not that you will give up eating altogether because that's time you could be spend in loving adoration. Instead, it'd mean that in a normal, non-emergency situation (you're not starving), all things being equal, you'd be willing to give up a meal in order to spend more time with your lover. Values don't exist in a vacuum--all of your values are interrelated. For instance, I might not forego that meal in order to spend a little extra time with my lover because my lover is currently busy or asleep and that particular block of time would not be very high quality. Or, if I'm hungry, I'd be irritable and that would wreck the value of that time.

Good grief, what racism, as if people INHERIT their philosophy. Many, many immigrants are more pro-liberty than native-born Americans. The culture has changed as a result of philosophical changes post-Enlightenment introduced by such philosophers as Kant, Marx, and Engels. That we retain any liberty at all is a testament to the incredible strength, resilience, and functionality of the American system of government. To answer Leonid's question: what keeps the government in check is ultimately that it's mandate is very specific. The government does not receive a mandate to "use force" and "maintain a monopoly on force" and from there can do whatever it likes. It receives a specific, limited mandate to retain a monopoly on the *retaliatory* use of force when rights have been violated and only to the extent necessary to remove or end the rights violation. It has NO mandate to initiate force on ANYONE for ANY purpose. Retaliatory means that the use of force occurs after the fact (or, rarely, as a preventive measure when the threat is clear), not immediately in the heat of the moment. If someone attacks you, you have the right to self-defense. You do not have to wait for a cop. The citizens retain their right to *self-defense*, including their right to self-defense against the government if it becomes a rights-violator. Ultimately, it is the citizens who keep the government in check, and their individual moral philosophy which keeps the citizens in check. This is why, when moral philosophy degrades or changes, the government runs amok.

A person can never voluntarily agree to turn themselves into property without any rights. Slavery doesn't just mean that you work for a person, it means that they OWN you. They can kill you, sell your organs on eBay, mutilate you, whatever they want, and it has no more significance than if they did the same to a piece of wood. This is not a proper human relationship and not one that can be created contractually. It is verbal sloppiness to refer to contractual terms such as "I will work eight hours a day five days a week for X company in Y position for ten years" as "slavery", even if the terms are much worse than that. This is a rather specific obligation. It does not reduce the person who agrees to it to the status of a piece of wood.

This is a REALLY BIZARRE statement. Nobody has ever owned an ENTIRE CITY, cities only EXIST because you have a multiplicity of people all wanting to own property in the same spot. Usually they parcel up the land into teeny tiny little postage-stamp sized squares because ownership competition is so fierce. Now, if you're talking about the facilities currently "owned" and operated by the city government (the streets, traffic system, bridges, etc.), then yeah, they should be fully privately owned and operated, but even then probably not just by one corporation. (I'm not saying that if one corporation does decide to buy ALL of it, that corporation should be broken up, I'm saying that the expense and logistics and degree of competition would be prohibitive, so this would be EXTREMELY unlikely.) Ultimately what will determine property usage is the free market, Adam Smith's "invisible hand". Good users who foresee market conditions will prosper, those who can't will fail and have to sell and move on. Prices for use and methods of payment will gravitate toward the lowest possible profitable level. Increases in productivity will lead to increases in profit, which will lead to an increase of investment in that area and the increased competition will drive prices still lower while spawning a multiplicity of models suitable for everyone. Most of these sorts of questions and problems (about taxation and so forth) derive from a misunderstanding of how economic planning works. A free market, contrary to what many people believe, is reality-oriented and (ultimately, not always immediately) acts like the most supremely perfected and tuned instrument of economic calculation. Conversely, a centrally "planned" economy, which is *supposed* to be calculated and efficient, always turns out to be chaotic, damaging, and incredibly random in its effects, because an economy is not a bus that you can drive. If you want a metaphor, trying to "steer" or "plan" an economy is like trying to steer a bus made out of thousands of quasi-independent bits each haphazardly moved around by people you can only "control" by prodding them in sensitive spots. The only ultimate certainty is that if you prod enough, the whole thing will collapse. How does this relate to taxation? The services that are now paid for by taxation ARE VALUABLE. In a free country people WILL pay for them even when they have the choice not to. Maybe not all of them, all of the time, but enough of them because that's how the metaphorical "calculation machine" works. Heck, even in a semi-free market people produce so much that the vast majority of them voluntarily throw away money on things that demonstrably have only emotional value! And the things that people actually need from the government and can obtain nowhere else are pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things.

The food system is only free in comparison, not in general. You need government permission to change the label on your product from "prunes" to "dried plums". It's illegal to slaughter livestock in a non-government-approved slaughterhouse, and the number of rules they have about what must be present in that slaughterhouse is absurd. The food market is enormously distorted by grain subsidies, which in turn is ruining a lot of people's health because they can't tolerate grain but this is the food that is cheap and readily available. Not to mention that diet and health are closely tied together. What are the big pharmaceutical moneymakers? Not cancer drugs or flu shots. It's medication for high cholesterol and diabetes--conditions that are caused largely by a diet based on cheap sugar and grains. If you consider high cholesterol a "condition", for most people it's totally harmless and low cholesterol will ramp up their likelihood of developing cancer, not to mention the fact that statins have RUINOUS side effects that are worse than the problem they purport to solve.

I think that the entire concept of "war crimes" (aside from those committed by your OWN troops, which is handled in full by Military Law) is absurd, but this is not the same as saying that I think the Nuremberg trials (or the later trial of Saddam Hussein) were mistaken in their conclusions. I think they were mistaken in their *justification* and in their *procedure*. Saddam Hussein was not a *criminal*, he was the *enemy*. He was not captured by police, but by the military. If the country or countries who capture the leaders of enemy forces want to convene a tribunal to review the facts and make sure they're about to execute (and execution should be the ONLY possible result, no prison time or house arrest or fines) the CORRECT people, that's all well and good and part of proper ethical behavior. However, this assembly should differ from a court in a number of important ways: 1. The accused is/are not entitled to a "defense". Or a jury. Heck, they don't even have to be present. 2. The purpose is not to establish guilt/innocence, but to establish firmly a given person's position, authority, and responsibilities in the enemy chain of command. 3. Condemnation is not based on a person's specific acts or orders, but on that established position. And, of course, there may be cases where amnesty is offered in exchange for a surrender, or a given person may have gained amnesty by acting as a spy, etc. I think it'd be a good thing if, after a war, the official policy was that every commissioned officer and all civilians who have authority over the military be executed as a matter of course. Irregular troops who don't wear a uniform (assuming they can be caught at all) should also be executed. Is this horrendous? Yes. But horrendous practices (going to war) should bring horrendous results. A free country should not be ATTACKING anyone, only defending itself (and its allies). So, if it's necessary to go to war, they should be serious about it, and serious about rendering their enemy incapable of prosecuting further wars.

GUARANTEE?!?! Good grief. I fear men with guns with "good intentions", and if you don't, you are so clueless that you shouldn't even think about discussing politics.

Not in the least. Did I mention justice anywhere? No. I'm talking strictly about legality, which can be a means to accomplishing justice or a means to injustice. Justice is an ETHICAL term, not a POLITICAL one. Laws are a POLITICAL tool, not an ETHICAL one. Legality, as part of a particular political ethos, arises from a particular approach to ethics, but they are NOT THE SAME and you cannot attempt to reverse this process by trying to get the ethics to somehow rise out of the politics. In simpler language: there is NO legal system ultimately that will restrain people who want to use political power unjustly. This is a huge problem that the Founders faced and their solution was to put as large a number of blocks in the way of the government doing ANYTHING as possible. The wisdom of this remains even today, when due to the general ethical system adopted by most people in this country, our government is generally at its best when it DOES NOTHING. However, it's not a fundamental solution because you can *never* have a fundamental solution to the fundamental "problem" in this case: that people have volition. You can dredge your imagination all you like, but nothing will ever enable you to "fix" this situation--and you should be very, very leery indeed of the unintended consequences of any such proposals, because many of them will be far worse than your original "problem".

A crime means you've broken the law. Therefore, you cannot have crimes that result from acting in accordance with the law, *even if* that law is later overturned. This would be ex post facto law and is clearly unjust. You're trying to get the snake to eat its own tail. Doesn't work.

Have you read Wheat Belly by Dr. Davis? It's possible your problems are related to diet. I advise reading this book and then giving up wheat and all wheat products for at least a month to see if any of your symptoms improve.

This is a much more complex question than the thread title seemed to suggest. So let me see if I understand you correctly: You propose that passing a law which is later struck down as unconstitutional should (sometimes?) result in criminal charges, and that the punishments for those charges should be in the Constitution. Then Steve suggested adding punishments for, um, "inappropriate" behavior? There are several problems with this, starting with the fact that judicial review isn't in the constitution to begin with--it was established as a precedent by John Marshall. So now you're proposing to add a practice to the constitution that depends on something that is NOT in the constitution. Assuming you amend the constitution to formally include judicial review, wouldn't this be an example of ex post facto law, since it would depend on the legislators in question knowing, in advance, that their legislation was going to be struck down as unconstitutional? In addition, wouldn't this procedure weaken the already shaky system of checks and balances by giving legislators an incentive to "manage" the judiciary in any way possible? Worse, this incentivizes the practice of frequently and recklessly amending the constitution any time there's even a little doubt about whether a given law falls under its provenance. Can you imagine the state the constitution would be in today if there were a significant incentive for Congress to constantly amend it? In any case, there already exist mechanisms for dealing with legislators and other government officials who do this: they can be impeached. Or voted out of office. Their legislation can be overturned. I'd be extremely leery of adding criminal charges and penalties to the process of law-making. The consequences would be far-reaching and extremely unpredictable, and would quite likely end up exacerbating the problem you propose to solve.

Legally? There shouldn't be a punishment at all. I have no problem if the justice system wants to issue a warrant to search his belongings for evidence that he's extending his behavior to people who actually have rights, but that's not not punitive from a legal standpoint. I like how these mushy-headed emotional arguments always assume that humans are eeevul, and the poor helpless cute fuzzy animals have to be protected. What happens when a 3-year-old gets mauled by a vicious dog? Animals don't have rights because they are fundamentally incapable of respecting the concept of rights. I'll grant you that some people fail at this, too, which is why we need a criminal justice system at all, but because they possess the basic capability it must be assumed that they're innocent until proven guilty. Concepts like innocent and guilty don't apply to animals because they do not possess a conceptual consciousness--they do not possess the capacity to "know better". Oh, and cockroaches totally are conscious. Try to step on one some time if you don't believe me. They damn well are aware of that boot coming down.

Absolutely not. No legal system with an interest in justice should take into account anyone's feelings about ANYTHING. That's what "hate speech" legislation is all about. Oh, it's perfectly fine to say it, as long as you don't "hate" someone, but if you're a "hater" then suddenly it's illegal. Not to mention that anyone can claim emotional pain at any time and it cannot be proven or disproven.

So is a cockroach. Anyone want to state that someone who kills a beloved cockroach ought to be faced with a jail sentence? No? You can love your dog as if it were a child, that doesn't change the fact that it's an animal, has no rights, and is property. Now, given that intentional cruelty to animals IS a sign of moral failing, I could see making a case that it is legitimate probable cause for searching your property for signs of illegal activity, and the resulting invasion/search/seizure of property ought to be quite satisfying emotionally to anyone affected by the animal cruelty. This would also be an effective means of public shaming/inconvenience that would work quite well as a deterrent without violating anyone's rights.