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MisterSwig

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On 10/2/2019 at 5:44 AM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Absolutely. I just wanted to underscore, briefly, that the question is not whether immigrants HAVE every single right a native can logically claim to have (they do) but precisely who is responsible for SAFEGUARDING those rights, and how. If you'd agree with that (as I suspect) then there's nothing else I could add to it.

And that's where I'm gonna have to stop you.

 

Yes, "precisely" WHO is doing the rights preservation and protection? This proper govt. institution is not a mystical, omnipresent entity, it has jurisdiction over a physical geographical area.. 

Harrison, I believe there's a fine line here (not the border...). At base I agree with Binswanger, if I may essentialize what he writes. It is unquestioningly right and proper for "man" that he be free to move wherever he wants worldwide, without impediment. Then... there's reality; the two have to be kept in mind. And - one needs keep equally in mind that "man" is all individual men. And an individual man can be "good" by choice (insofar as respecting others' rights) or can be "bad" (by his default of choice). In short, one can't lump all men, immigrants and migrants together as "good" and virtuous  - or bad, for that matter. 

Is it the function of govt.- appointed civil servants to protect our present citizens' individual rights  -- at the border? That seems logical, legal and ethical, check them coming in, after which they should not require further stops and checks, if not warranted. A border identification and check is no guarantee, but it supplies a minimum safeguard.

If HB is going to admit *everybody* - not even requesting each one's name - we can bet that (conservatively) 5% will be "predators" of some sort. Which translates to 5K out of 100K migrants. I claim that number in practice will be greater, simply *because* many more baddies will exploit their 'freedom' from identification and of mobility. Net result? We'll have 5000+ more criminals at loose everywhere in a society. As is known, the existence of only one criminal gang can cause great havoc in a city.

Which reminds me, HB reckons that (in his extreme example) the USA could accommodate half the world's population without disruption and to its great economic advantage -- since - there's "space" for every one, per sq. foot in that vast land. Again, he seems to forget what the experiences of other countries have unfailingly shown. Immediately on entry, migrants and refugees gravitate to one or a few of the closest urban centers. They never conveniently fan apart but congregate where they feel safer and to their benefit, among others with similar customs and language, where employment might be found, etc.. (Not only massive over-population in a few parts, but the downside in areas of some European cities and towns, is the local natives are forcibly kept out or discouraged, you'll know).

I think one dropped context is that this unofficial, migrant work force will be competing for simple jobs with native citizens, at far less pay, while the latter are hamstrung by minimum wage laws and will lose out.

Before anyone negates such 'lowly' manual labor, remember, Howard Roark once happily worked in a rock quarry...Not every citizen is itching to climb 'the corporate ladder'to great future wealth, as Harry suggests. Many people actually like (skilled, semi-skilled) manual work (at least as a stop-gap, or with ambitions of their own small e.g. building firm). 

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2 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Which reminds me, HB reckons that (in his extreme example) the USA could accommodate half the world's population without disruption and to its great economic advantage -- since - there's "space" for every one, per sq. foot in that vast land. Again, he seems to forget what the experiences of other countries have unfailingly shown. Immediately on entry, migrants and refugees gravitate to one or a few of the closest urban centers. They never conveniently fan apart but congregate where they feel safer and to their benefit, among others with similar customs and language, where employment might be found, etc.. (Not only massive over-population in a few parts, but the downside in areas of some European cities and towns, is the local natives are forcibly kept out or discouraged, you'll know).

https://youtu.be/2X93u3anTco?t=101

 

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What needs re-stating is that man is a contractual being (derived from his nature as a volitional being, I gather). One enters into contracts in clear knowledge of what one voluntarily promises to deliver and what one is entitled to, by the terms. Quid pro quo. The immigration/citizenship process appears no different. Both parties, individual and government, have an understanding of the agreement they make, and the benefits and potential value each can receive. So, why an individual who wishes to immigrate can (or would) refuse to reveal his identity - and why requiring such bare information would be a violation of his rights - is beyond reason. To enter into any contract, by definition, one first needs to make oneself *known*. (All this I believe is why legal immigrants take so seriously - and proudly - swearing the oath of allegiance to the Constitution and laws of America: they are making an individual, decisive commitment, one of the biggest of their lives. Good for them, what I've seen, read and heard of the ceremony always gives me a boost. This, their formal, contractual, oath, concluding and arrived at by a self-determination to better their lives,  is what some propose to compromise, with migration-without- identification?

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18 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Man, I have no idea what the relevance is. You will have to clarify for my simple mind. Got bored half way, anyway. I've heard Colbert before, and like with many Late Nite comedians, I'm under-impressed. When did (once, excellent) US comedians get so superior, sneering, snide and cynical? Has something to do with rising Leftism, I guess. 

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On 10/1/2019 at 11:06 AM, Eiuol said:

I've made it consistently clear that intelligence agencies would be important, and those agencies would provide the information necessary to determine suspects. 

And by what right are these intelligence agencies allowed to spy on people? Isn't that a violation of right to privacy of foreigners? Intelligence agencies wouldn't exist if right to privacy was an absolute right.

 

On 10/1/2019 at 11:06 AM, Eiuol said:

But do keep in mind that I'm not completely against border stops so you can look at license plates and whatnot

And how would these border patrol agents know that the person standing in front of them is the person that they're looking for, without asking for identification?

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5 hours ago, human_murda said:

And by what right are these intelligence agencies allowed to spy on people?

Please use some critical thinking if you're going to ask me a question. I've said repeatedly that any kind of search, and by implication spying, must be justified based on a legitimate suspicion. 

5 hours ago, human_murda said:

And how would these border patrol agents know that the person standing in front of them is the person that they're looking for, without asking for identification?

If the license plate matches some known suspect, then clearly it would be justified ask for identification at that point. 

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On 10/5/2019 at 9:23 AM, whYNOT said:

What needs re-stating is that man is a contractual being (derived from his nature as a volitional being, I gather). One enters into contracts in clear knowledge of what one voluntarily promises to deliver and what one is entitled to, by the terms. Quid pro quo. The immigration/citizenship process appears no different. Both parties, individual and government, have an understanding of the agreement they make, and the benefits and potential value each can receive. So, why an individual who wishes to immigrate can (or would) refuse to reveal his identity - and why requiring such bare information would be a violation of his rights - is beyond reason. To enter into any contract, by definition, one first needs to make oneself *known*. (All this I believe is why legal immigrants take so seriously - and proudly - swearing the oath of allegiance to the Constitution and laws of America: they are making an individual, decisive commitment, one of the biggest of their lives. Good for them, what I've seen, read and heard of the ceremony always gives me a boost. This, their formal, contractual, oath, concluding and arrived at by a self-determination to better their lives,  is what some propose to compromise, with migration-without- identification?

We need to distinguish clearly between immigration and citizenship.  People who wish to become citizens should have to clearly identify themselves.  But people who simply enter the country are not entering into that kind of contract.  Why should they have to identify themselves?

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Please use some critical thinking if you're going to ask me a question.

I could, but you usually deny any implications for your statements. Besides, your reasoning is circular (according to you, suspicion would be established even before collecting intelligence. Then you use this intelligence to establish suspicion to search people).

 

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

If the license plate matches some known suspect, then clearly it would be justified ask for identification at that point. 

Why would there be license plates in a world where cars don't need to be registered (and even if they did, suspects could just get out of the car and just walk across the border)?

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5 hours ago, human_murda said:

I could, but you usually deny any implications for your statements. Besides, your reasoning is circular (according to you, suspicion would be established even before collecting intelligence. Then you use this intelligence to establish suspicion to search people).

Because Eioul imagines that this initial "suspicion" will fall free, like manna from the heavens. He believes that wanted criminals will drive around with bloody arms sticking out of their windows. Or he needs to believe this, at any rate, to avoid the conclusion that his approach to law enforcement would utterly fail to enforce the law (against all but the egregiously stupid, perhaps).

5 hours ago, human_murda said:

Why would there be license plates in a world where cars don't need to be registered (and even if they did, suspects could just get out of the car and just walk across the border)?

Indeed. Eiuol's imagination fails him utterly in this regard -- which is ironic, given that it is often one of his strengths. But, since psychologizing has been de rigueur in this thread, I'll again speculate that this is actually a self-defense mechanism, in that it allows him to maintain his position without seeing the flaws inherent to it.

No license plates... tinted windows... private roads... I find myself wondering where the police are to find any handholds at all.

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3 hours ago, DonAthos said:

He believes that wanted criminals will drive around with bloody arms sticking out of their windows.

 

On 10/2/2019 at 3:08 PM, Eiuol said:

And I wasn't even referring to that being the only justification to stop someone. It was just the easiest justification you could possibly have.

Aka, start with perception. 

 

10 hours ago, human_murda said:

Why would there be license plates in a world where cars don't need to be registered

It was one example. We can imagine more, and private registries can exist.

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4 hours ago, DonAthos said:

 find myself wondering where the police are to find any handholds at all.

You understand you look silly because police do have to meet these thresholds and it does not in fact stop them from investigating and solving crimes? We've already argued for why there should be 4A. You're now arguing that whether or not what is in fact a reality could be a reality. As a handhold for you, to get back to reality, I might recommend calling your local police department and talking to a detective or patrolman and asking them how they do their work, or watch something like Homicide Hunter or The First 48 on TV. What you seem like right now is the former Soviet Union commissars that wondered how things can even operate in the west with all that freedom.

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23 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Aka, start with perception. 

But Eiuol, we do start with perception. You see the person approaching the border, you stop them: that starts with perception.

You would like some individualized reason to stop a particular person -- but I still do not see why. Your standard of "probable cause" is not the strict use of retaliatory force, not in all cases and probably not in most. "Suspicion," is not a terrifically high hurdle to clear, after all, and when I suggested a higher one (e.g. trial by jury), better designed to avoid violating rights, you rejected it without reason.

But the fact remains, you're willing to stop people though you understand that some of them will not have initiated the use of force. I'm willing to do that, too -- not "arbitrarily," but when they cross the border, for the purpose of gaining information (i.e. information which allows for law enforcement). That information is required specifically at a border crossing because the border crossing represents an individual crossing from one legal jurisdiction (where their records are kept, where evidence of crime is gathered, where warrants are issued, etc.) into another.

Everything that supports both "probable cause" and "warrant" in terms of reasonableness and necessity also supports a border stop, though it is a different instrument with a different threshold. That you embrace one such instrument, one such threshold, while rejecting all others is clear -- but what isn't clear is whether you have any principled reason for doing so.

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14 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

We need to distinguish clearly between immigration and citizenship.  People who wish to become citizens should have to clearly identify themselves.  But people who simply enter the country are not entering into that kind of contract.  Why should they have to identify themselves?

Yes, I have been casual about distinctions of immigration and citizenship - and - green cards, residency permits-visitors-tourists-visas, and so on. But they all require identification, so I'd think they may be lumped together in one category for this topic. The question here, and stand-out exception, is 'open migration' - carrying zero identity requirement. Why should a migrant deserve it?

What makes the (illegal) migrant that important, he/she doesn't have to be named nor name himself, but only needs access a border, and thereafter gains freedom of movement? This complete anonymity is a special dispensation, unavailable to citizens, residents, etc., and ~ by far ~ more open to abuse (than those in the other category). I yet have to hear a moral reply to why he earns this exclusive privilege.

"Economic immigrants", as they are called - I consider a given. A certainty is that the majority of people come from a poorer and/or less free country without opportunities to raise their lives.

Second, refugees from wars and disasters would fit into another category, receiving (perhaps temporary, maybe permanent) aid and treatment.

Fine, but both these groups would also need to be individually identified. And not "migrants" who skip the border? Why?

 

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14 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

 Why should they have to identify themselves?

Because it's the minimum display of "good faith"...?

The least acknowledgment of what they are gaining in return. Iow, no sacrifice.

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2 hours ago, DonAthos said:

when I suggested a higher one (e.g. trial by jury), better designed to avoid violating rights, you rejected it without reason

I gave you reasons, you didn't like them. I explained as best I could. I mean, do you really doubt the value of probable cause? Are you really trying to demonstrate to me that warrants aren't enough? If you are, fine, but I'm not interested in that discussion. 

2 hours ago, DonAthos said:

You see the person approaching the border, you stop them: that starts with perception.

If you think that crossing a border creates a legitimate suspicion, I really don't know what else to say. I think people are getting confused. Intelligence agencies or even the FBI I propose are an alternative to border patrols. Aside from that, agents would gather information at first, passively, then move on to active gathering as they pass increasing thresholds of suspicion. No suspicion is required to look passively, but a suspicion is required for active searching like asking for documents (and yes, such documents can even exist within privately owned systems for completely capitalist nations). 

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I gave you reasons, you didn't like them. I explained as best I could.

You invented an argument to refute -- that I was calling for "infallibility." You did not address my actual argument at all.

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I mean, do you really doubt the value of probable cause? Are you really trying to demonstrate to me that warrants aren't enough?

I don't doubt the value of probable cause (and there is value, too, in a border stop). However, I believe that both probable cause and warrants are susceptible to the same principled critiques offered regarding border stops. As presented, they both "violate rights," yet you endorse one and reject the other. But why should we allow rights violations in the case of a warrant/probable cause? Can you defend that which you advocate?

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

If you think that crossing a border creates a legitimate suspicion, I really don't know what else to say.

I don't. I think that a border stop does not require "suspicion."

Suspicion, or "probable cause," is one good reason to stop a person. Crossing a national border is another.

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1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

You did not address my actual argument at all.

It didn't sound like an argument to me anyway. It was just a poorly phrased question I think.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

However, I believe that both probable cause and warrants are susceptible to the same principled critiques offered regarding border stops.

Okay, if you think border stops as you define them (which for you includes detaining individuals at the border, not just asking for documents) fit into the same framework, then why do you keep talking about some additional higher thresholds as a standard, as if I want some different standard than you? Since you already have in mind some argument that can support border stops without first requiring warrants, then tell me. I don't want you to guide me to the water, I want you to tell me the answer.

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

Suspicion, or "probable cause," is one good reason to stop a person. Crossing a national border is another.

If your position is that there are other good justifications to stop someone beside suspicion, then why are we talking about probable cause and warrants? If I have that correct, then your argument sounds something like national security interests are a good reason to sometimes supersede the 4th amendment (eg "statistically speaking, 1% of people who cross the border have committed crimes, but we don't know which 1%, so we need to search 100%") 

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Okay, if you think border stops as you define them (which for you includes detaining individuals at the border, not just asking for documents)...

I'm not entirely certain how you would ask for documents without some level of "detention," though I have proposed a futuristic scanner that would eliminate the need for any kind of stop at all -- but you're not satisfied with that, either.

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

...fit into the same framework, then why do you keep talking about some additional higher thresholds as a standard, as if I want some different standard than you?

I don't know if you want some different standard than I do. I have constantly asked you to articulate a standard -- and you have yet to provide one (though in its place you've provided an analogy to science, and you've gestured towards established law/authority, and you've drawn -- and subsequently disavowed -- distinctions between "active" and "inactive," and etc.).

My standard is that we must do that which is necessary (i.e. required in reality, in context) to enforce the law, because "individual rights," whatever else that entails, requires the enforcement of law. This further requires information to be gathered (prior to the stage of "probable cause"; it is on the basis of information that one may arrive at something like probable cause) and is inclusive of both "warrant" and stops at the border. The particular nature of a border stop accounts to the particular nature of a border, and the change in jurisdiction it represents.

When you're presented some clear standard, then we can see whether our standards align or where they diverge.

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Since you already have in mind some argument that can support border stops without first requiring warrants, then tell me. I don't want you to guide me to the water, I want you to tell me the answer.

The argument has been presented from the first. The argument that supports border stops without first requiring warrants is that border stops are necessary to enforce the law. Judges recognize this and do not require warrants for border stops. There's the water. Drink up. :)

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

If your position is that there are other good justifications to stop someone beside suspicion, then why are we talking about probable cause and warrants?

Because you are talking about probable cause and warrants. You think probable cause and warrants are acceptable, despite the fact that they entail the use of force against those who have not themselves initiated the use of force. And as you have left me guessing as to whatever "standard" provides the foundation of your views, I'd guess that it is just that sort of thing that you'd like to avoid with border stops. So, I'd like to know how and why you justify using force against the innocent in one case but not in the other.

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

If I have that correct, then your argument sounds something like national security interests are a good reason to sometimes supersede the 4th amendment (eg "statistically speaking, 1% of people who cross the border have committed crimes, but we don't know which 1%, so we need to search 100%") 

It isn't that 1% have committed crimes, as such; it's that 100% are coming from a separate legal jurisdiction, and so we need to stop 100% to get that information. And if we mean to be protected against "unreasonable search and seizure," then we have no disagreement, because a border stop is not an unreasonable search and seizure.

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1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

though in its place you've provided an analogy to science

It wasn't an analogy, it was the same principles involved. The epistemic standards of investigating the unknown. 

1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

So, I'd like to know how and why you justify using force against the innocent in one case but not in the other.

I already answered this. It had to do with the threat of imminent crime. I feel like it was asked a long time ago, so if you responded to something after my first response about how it isn't initiating force, then please point out your rebuttal for that part.

I don't see why you care though. If I gave you an answer that satisfied you, you would then start talking about how you believe there are other justifications anyway.
 

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26 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

It wasn't an analogy, it was the same principles involved. The epistemic standards of investigating the unknown. 

It boggles me a bit that I'm stopping to address this, but even if the same principles are involved, it would still be an analogy... i.e. "law enforcement is analogous to science in that they share the same epistemic standards," or what have you.

As to "epistemic standards" and the best practices of "investigating the unknown" (which is such a broad and saturated phrase as to be practically useless), they must be guided by experts in the field and with great attention to specific context. I am not in the position to prescribe to professional scientists what the best manner of "investigating the unknown" would be in any given instance, and what I would have to say with respect to the philosophical underpinnings of such would be again so broad and general as to be both obvious and practically useless. Insofar as I know you, I think you're in much the same position. And I feel confident in saying that neither one of us has any standing to comment on law enforcement practice, as such -- whether a border stop is an effective use of law enforcement resource, or setting up a scanner, or etc.

Regardless, the question before us is not to do with "epistemic standards," but politics, individual rights, and the use of force.

26 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I already answered this. It had to do with the threat of imminent crime. I feel like it was asked a long time ago, so if you responded to something after my first response about how it isn't initiating force, then please point out your rebuttal for that part.

What is there to rebut that I have not already done? Here's your response (from not so very long ago -- it's dated from 9/29):

"Because of warrants, with some means of inferring that you have a good reason to search someone, and that the person is somehow involved with a crime or threat of a crime. In that way, nobody you search would be innocent. Of course, you might be mistaken, and it turns out the person didn't know anything. In that case, I think it would still be a violation, but not from malicious intent or disregard for rights."

I've bolded the part where you acknowledge the initiation of force (for that is what a "violation" of individual rights consists of). Do you send mixed messages by claiming that "nobody you search would be innocent" in the same paragraph? Of course. And my refutation of that notion came directly:

"The police absolutely search innocent people. You can be accused of a crime, or suspected of a crime -- and be 100% innocent of that crime. (And furthermore being "somehow involved with a crime" does not make you criminal. There are plenty of people involved with a crime who did not themselves commit any crime -- and these people are often subject to the use of force, as in the case of a subpoena. Yet they have not initiated the use of force.)"

So yes, by defending warrants and probable cause, you are advocating the initiation of the use of force by your own accounting -- and to belabor this a bit (because by now I'm sure we all recognize it is necessary), you are advocating using force against people who have not themselves used force.

26 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I don't see why you care though. If I gave you an answer that satisfied you, you would then start talking about how you believe there are other justifications anyway.

Forgive me, Eiuol, but I want to see proof that you understand the text before I grant you some power to infer subtext.

Speaking for myself, if you gave me an answer that truly satisfies me, I would expect to be satisfied.

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30 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

even if the same principles are involved, it would still be an analogy...

No, analogies are a likeness but fail to be similar in very important ways (saying that the eye works like a camera is an analogy, but they are actually radically different things). I'm saying they are the same principles. This matters a lot here, it's the meat of my position, it's my way to say that your reasoning about the necessity of checking everyone at the border because of jurisdiction change.

Since you don't like my wording of investigating the unknown, then consider it the effort to find certainty about a theory you've developed.

30 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

you are advocating the initiation of the use of force by your own accounting

This confuses what I said, because I was talking about cases of errors. I said that because I expected you would say "aha! But what if they make a mistake!" Standards of suspicion (or you could call it thresholds of guilt) should be based on certainty, and if you act on certainty, you have no reason to think you are violating rights. So I want to acknowledge fallibility, and demanding some greater standard would require something more than certainty - which would be infallibility. This wording here should be more clear.

30 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

I want to see proof that you understand the text before I grant you some power to infer subtext.

The way I see it, the issue is how you treat certainty. It sounds like you want to push me to say that my position is rationalism - you think that if I'm consistent and go to a logical conclusion, I would use even higher thresholds of certainty. So then that would reveal an error since this couldn't work in reality, leaving me with having to accept your position. But then I think your issue is empiricism, where you have to literally look at every single person crossing a jurisdiction to be sure that law enforcement can do their job. 

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32 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

No, analogies are a likeness but fail to be similar in very important ways (saying that the eye works like a camera is an analogy, but they are actually radically different things). I'm saying they are the same principles. This matters a lot here, it's the meat of my position, it's my way to say that your reasoning about the necessity of checking everyone at the border because of jurisdiction change.

I'm going to leave alone re: "analogy" for the moment. There seems to be something missing from your final sentence here, so I'm not entirely certain I understand your point.

Regardless, we aren't discussing "epistemic standards," we are discussing the initiation of the use of force. Whether you believe you're comparing some aspect of law enforcement to something found in science, or otherwise relating them in a...  somehow non-analogous fashion, you're not addressing the matter at hand. What we're discussing does not apply to science and its "investigation of the unknown." (Unless scientists are stopping people at the border to study them; or unless the objects of scientific inquiry, say photons, have been assigned individual rights.)

32 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

This confuses what I said, because I was talking about cases of errors. I said that because I expected you would say "aha! But what if they make a mistake!" Standards of suspicion (or you could call it thresholds of guilt) should be based on certainty, and if you act on certainty, you have no reason to think you are violating rights. So I want to acknowledge fallibility, and demanding some greater standard would require something more than certainty - which would be infallibility. This wording here should be more clear.

I acknowledge fallibility. Whatever standards we devise will be subject to fallibility. Yet it is not the case that we only use force when we believe we have determined an individual to be guilty of some crime, howsoever we might be mistaken -- rather, we employ force against those whom we acknowledge may well be innocent, and on that point we are as yet indeterminate. We recognize this informally when we say that someone is "innocent until proven guilty," but formally we have a process wherein we determine the guilt of individuals... after we have employed force against them! This is to say, we recognize that some of the people we "suspect" or charge for crimes will be found not guilty, will in fact be innocent: this is why we have a trial. That we use force against people we later determine to have been innocent is not an "error"; it is the very system itself, functioning precisely as designed.

This is why I contrasted it against the notion that we could try people first, before employing force against only those found guilty. You've dismissed this and refused to consider it and strawmanned it (as it has nothing whatever to do with infallibility), but I don't see why, or why you would prefer warrants and "probable cause." Why do you prefer that?

But table that for a moment. Let me bring the parenthetical from my quote to the fore:

"And furthermore being 'somehow involved with a crime' does not make you criminal. There are plenty of people involved with a crime who did not themselves commit any crime -- and these people are often subject to the use of force, as in the case of a subpoena. Yet they have not initiated the use of force."

Suppose a man suspected of stealing... a necklace. Let us say that, prior to his arrest, he was spotted entering a bank and leaving a short while later. An interview with the clerk turns up that the suspected thief rents a safe deposit box at the bank. Consulting with the district attorney's office, the police determine that it will be hard to prove any theft in court without being able to show that the thief wound up in possession of the necklace. So, the police would like to inspect the suspect's safe deposit box... but the bank refuses to cooperate; they do not wish to violate their customers' privacy.

Would you have the police seek a warrant/use of force against the bank? If so, how would you characterize this?

32 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

The way I see it, the issue is how you treat certainty. It sounds like you want to push me to say that my position is rationalism - you think that if I'm consistent and go to a logical conclusion, I would use even higher thresholds of certainty. So then that would reveal an error since this couldn't work in reality, leaving me with having to accept your position. But then I think your issue is empiricism, where you have to literally look at every single person crossing a jurisdiction to be sure that law enforcement can do their job. 

I do not have to look at literally every single person crossing the border to be sure that law enforcement can do their job; that is law enforcement doing their job. Gaining this information -- as for instance, whether anyone in the territorial jurisdiction of the United States has a warrant out for their arrest -- is part and parcel to law enforcement.

I don't know whether this would serve to muck things up further, or cut to the chase, but imagine that we had the technology to scan the face of the planet such that law enforcement could know with precision who everyone is and where everyone is, at all times, along with all relevant, associated criminal data. (And let us stipulate that this has no other byproduct; that the scan itself is utterly harmless and unintrusive.) Given that all other law upholds and protects individual rights the world over, what would you make of such a scan? Is that a marvelous technology that would help us to better protect individual rights? Is it, in and of itself, the violation of rights? Or something else?

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20 hours ago, DonAthos said:

There seems to be something missing from your final sentence here, so I'm not entirely certain I understand your point.

Sorry, it should say something like it was "my way to say that your reasoning has poor foundations".

20 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Regardless, we aren't discussing "epistemic standards," we are discussing the initiation of the use of force.

Then I think this is the source of the disagreement. If you think that what we are discussing does not apply to science, then you are necessarily saying that whatever standard and thresholds you have for deciding when it is appropriate to apply force, is that these standards and thresholds don't have to do with figuring out what we need to attain certainty. I'm sure there are some epistemic standards you care about, but it sounds like you don't know why epistemic standards need to come in when we are applying force. I'm not saying that we are talking about scientific method, but I am talking about investigation. The thing that is the same here is applying tests one at a time in a meticulous manner, and only when it is reasonable, to go onto an even more in-depth test. Context only affects how conservative we want to be. Given that individual rights are involved, we would want to be extremely conservative about the steps we take. Individual rights are a good principle for codifying just how conservative we should be. More specifically, 4A when it comes to deciding who is worth searching. 

I'd suggest reviewing 2046's posts. It's not the same argument, but those posts at least use similar language that easily applies to what I mean by being conservative with the steps we take.

20 hours ago, DonAthos said:

You've dismissed this and refused to consider it and strawmanned it

Dismissed it because I didn't understand it. I prefer warrants and probable cause because I think anything more would be a standard of infallibility. 

20 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Would you have the police seek a warrant/use of force against the bank? If so, how would you characterize this?

Yes. I mean, as set up, we are relying on what the clerk says they remember. It's too weak of a justification and unreliable. Even if you can make a good legal case, at the very least, it's better than saying something like "let's check all the safe-deposit boxes". Your search should only be proportional to the evidence you have.

20 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Is that a marvelous technology that would help us to better protect individual rights? Is it, in and of itself, the violation of rights? Or something else?

It would be an active search, so it should require a warrant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_0F6v1_iy4

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On 10/9/2019 at 12:01 PM, whYNOT said:

This complete anonymity is a special dispensation, unavailable to citizens, residents, etc.,

I don't have to identify myself to cross a state or county line or for most other movement, or if I pay cash for something in a store.  So it is not a special dispensation; it is a normal condition of movement, available to everyone.

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On 10/9/2019 at 12:37 PM, whYNOT said:
On 10/8/2019 at 10:42 PM, Doug Morris said:

 Why should they have to identify themselves?

Because it's the minimum display of "good faith"...?

The least acknowledgment of what they are gaining in return. Iow, no sacrifice.

These seem like pretty weak arguments.  Why don't they apply when I cross a state or county line?

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