Nicky, show me where I wrote a capitalist government following Rand would violate rights?
You must have misunderstood.
If you read through the thread you can see my purpose is to establish such a system - not to reject it.
Don, thank you for your post on Sunday.
I didn’t think it was rambling and, in my view, it has enriched this thread. I hope readers here take the time to take in your points.
On 11/23/2015 at 7:03 PM, Jon Southall said:
Secondly, observing that there are no governments in the world that meet the above standard, do you think it is possible to introduce such a form of government?
Such a form of Government depends on the acceptance of Objectivism, or atleast some amount of rationality by citizens. And since it is only in individuals’ hands to decide whether they will be rational or not, and if yes, then will they be in a sufficient number to bring about such a change, is a question which hence cannot be predicted just like Ayn Rand said she would not venture to predict if Objectivism will be a widely followed philosophy on earth one day or not
5 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
Nicky, show me where I wrote a capitalist government following Rand would violate rights?
Seriously? You forgot that you asked me about the basis for a government claiming sovereignty over a territory, and when I answered individual rights, you responded that that’s contradictory?
Or are you not aware that the government described by Rand would in fact have sovereignty over a territory?
Nicky,
What I actually wrote was this:
" On the one hand you claim that the basis of national claim to jurisdiction is individual rights. That is a premise that I think the three of us are all in agreement with."
The contradiction I pointed out was yours; your claim that pragmatics trumps rights.
The basis of jurisdiction is rights, but when you make it about territory I believe you run into some problem areas. Some posters claim it is not who owns the property that makes a difference when it comes to territory, but then who has the right to call that territory their own? Or what community does?
Also when it concerns wilderness, Ayn Rand liked the homesteading principle which requires that the government acts as custodian over some area of wilderness - custodianship based on what?
It seems problematic integrating a rights based approach with a territorial approach. If you can shed some light on it, and would like to then be my guest.
On 12/21/2015 at 3:17 PM, DonAthos said:
You appear to claim that living in a country*, for instance, is to give consent to the people who claim power in that country, to agree that they may rightly do whatever it is that they do. I disagree.
Me too, I disagree 
because this is not what I clamed; you did not pay attention to my wording.
First, I clearly specified that entering a non-rights-respecting country, does not mean giving any kind of consent or endorsement: “If the county is not rights-respecting, one has no moral obligation to respect its laws…”. Second: the consent (whether granted or denied) I was referring to was not for people who claim power in that country, nor an endorsement for whatever it is that they do; the consent was for respecting the law of the land as a consequence of recognizing the essentially rights-respecting spirit of the laws and an at least acceptable degree of government’s respect for the law.
On 12/21/2015 at 3:17 PM, DonAthos said:
When you discuss “rights-respecting” governments, are you restricting your use to some ideal government you wish to work towards in some distant future? Or do you mean it to refer to any existing government (e.g. the Spanish, UK, Swiss, American, etc.)?
As I specified several times in my comments (twice in my previous comment only), I refer to “essentially rights-respecting” governments.
On 12/21/2015 at 3:17 PM, DonAthos said:
Yet I do not agree that any government (which really means: any other person or group of people) may violate my rights because it proposes to violate them “only a little,”…
Again, as I already wrote, the implicit consent to respect the laws (of an essentially rights-respecting régime) implies the consent to attempt to change them by peaceful means only, by those procedures provided in the laws.
On the subject of the forms of withdrawal of consent I will say only this:
-
the attempt to change the laws by peaceful means is not a form of such a withdrawal
-
when the country evolves into a tyranny, the withdrawal of consent may be violent.
On 12/21/2015 at 4:18 PM, Devil’s Advocate said:
when you speak of duties and obligations, I have to bear in mind that my first duty and obligation is to myself…
To repeat: I was not speaking of moral duties, but of duties and obligations one assumes when taking a job – of professional obligations
On 12/21/2015 at 4:18 PM, Devil’s Advocate said:
sovereignty emanates from myself as a rights-respecting individual who chooses to abide the law of the land; not the other way around.
Are you talking about the personal sovereignty, the person’s independency and self-ownership? In this case I am not sure I’ve clamed the contrary, because I was always speaking about government’s sovereignty/jurisdiction over a territory. I do not deny, however, that the sovereignty/jurisdiction of a proper government is related to the personal self-ownership.
On 12/17/2015 at 0:02 AM, Jon Southall said:
Israel. Jewish people purchased land and established a new state after ww2. Is the jurisdiction of Israel legitimate or not?
Yes, it is legitimate. The legitimacy of a régime and of its jurisdiction in the country comes from the fact of (essentially) respecting the individual rights of its citizens. It has nothing to do with the fact of purchasing land.
Regarding Israel’s legitimacy, I wrote many years ago some comments on this forum, including about land purchase – see here and here.
AlexL,
In responding I firstly admit I have not read your links, so apologies if they address this.
Let’s take as our starting point two claims you seem to be making. 1) the legitimacy of a regime comes from respecting the individual rights of its citizens and 2) the jurisdiction of the regime territorially does not stem from what its citizens own.
Have I got this starting point right?
In this case, I would understand your claim to be that Israel would be legitimate not because the territory of Israel belongs to Israelis but because the government respects the rights of its Israeli citizens.
At some point in the past, the land purchased was in a territory under a different government than the emergent Israeli state. Is your view that the justification for Israeli land owners establishing their own territory governed by its own state that the prior regime was failing to protect and respect the rights of those who later establised the Israeli state?
If Objectivist land owners in America felt that their rights were being abused in various ways, for example by tax and regulations, and decided to establish a government that would not violate their rights, then given what they would create would be a better regime for protecting and respecting the rights of self-designated Objectivists, would this justify the creation of an Objectivist state separate from the US in your view?
What would be different about this scenario compared to Israel?
59 minutes ago, AlexL said:
Me too, I disagree
LOL, that’s fair enough, only…
59 minutes ago, AlexL said:
…you did not pay attention to my wording.
I don’t think that’s true. (Please believe me that, whatever our disagreements or miscommunications, I take this seriously, and I pay strict attention to what you write.)
59 minutes ago, AlexL said:
First, I clearly specified that entering a non-rights-respecting country, does not mean giving any kind of consent or endorsement: “If the county is not rights-respecting, one has no moral obligation to respect its laws…”
Again, fair enough. We’re agreed on this point.
59 minutes ago, AlexL said:
Second: the consent (whether granted or denied) I was referring to was not for people who claim power in that country, nor an endorsement for whatever it is that they do; the consent was for respecting the law of the land as a consequence of recognizing the essentially rights-respecting spirit of the laws and an at least acceptable degree of government’s respect for the law.
Yet the “law of the land” must be interpreted and carried out by people. Your proposed robots notwithstanding, the law does not enforce itself. I think that consenting to a government is not alone with respect to laws in the abstract, but also the actual administration and execution of governance.
This is to say, an actual government is more than merely the sum of its laws.
But let me say more: the “laws” and the governance that I’m prepared to respect and consent to are the same everywhere. I will not initiate the use of force, but I reserve the right to defend myself against force. If I live in a place where society is such that they assist me in this endeavor, so much the better (and I will lend my own support to such a society accordingly); if I find myself in a society where others work against me in this, not only do I not consent to their activity, but I will work against their designs, so far as it is within my means and deemed for my benefit. It does not matter to me who wears a badge on his chest, or what that badge says, I do not consent that my rights may be violated, and I do not consent to any government which would countenance such.
59 minutes ago, AlexL said:
As I specified several times in my comments (twice in my previous comment only), I refer to “essentially rights-respecting” governments.
I know. And I believe that you’ll find that language reflected here:
On 12/21/2015 at 6:17 AM, DonAthos said:
…I believe it to be the case that no actual government, past or present, is rights-respecting. Not fully and not essentially, but only, I would argue, “comparatively.”
But let me be more specific. The government of the United States (which I cite primarily due to my own familiarity, but I expect that most others would serve my purpose equally) does not “essentially” respect rights. It funds (nearly) its every activity through coercive taxation, which is to say, theft. How can an entity which supports itself through theft (and only squabbles over “how much” to steal) be justly described as “essentially rights-respecting”? (And this is not to speak of the myriad of issues such as the draft, eminent domain, protectionist trade policies, the drug war, laws against prostitution and gambling, regulations which choke business and the development of medicine and technology and etc., and etc., etc., etc.)
Is the government of the United States comparatively rights-respecting, as against many other governments, past and present? Yes, I believe so. But that’s not the same thing. And again:
On 12/21/2015 at 6:17 AM, DonAthos said:
I do not agree that any government (which really means: any other person or group of people) may violate my rights because it proposes to violate them “only a little,” or “less than others might.” I do not consent to this; do you?
This isn’t merely a rhetorical question, and I would love to know your sincere answer. Do you consent that others may violate your rights “a little bit,” because you consider them (or the laws which they purportedly serve) to be “essentially rights-respecting”?
59 minutes ago, AlexL said:
Again, as I already wrote, the implicit consent to respect the laws (of an essentially rights-respecting régime) implies the consent to attempt to change them by peaceful means only, by those procedures provided in the laws.
On the subject of the forms of withdrawal of consent I will say only this:
the attempt to change the laws by peaceful means is not a form of such a withdrawal
when the country evolves into a tyranny, the withdrawal of consent may be violent.
All right. Let’s continue briefly on “the forms of withdrawal of consent.”
Suppose… hmm, suppose that the people of Alaska (however we propose to know “their mind”) decided that their regional interests were not being served by the American government in Washington, D.C., and voted to form their own nation (which would pursue oil drilling to a greater extent; let us say, for simplicity, that this is the salient difference).
Would you agree that they had the right to do so? If so, do you think that the government of the United States should allow this to happen peacefully? Do you think it would allow such a thing to happen, in reality (being “essentially rights-respecting”)? Would an Objectivist state/proper government (whatever this means to you) allow it to happen peacefully?
17 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
The basis of jurisdiction is rights, but when you make it about territory I believe you run into some problem areas.
I didn’t make it about territory. That is the official Objectivist position. I just let you know about it.
And I don’t care what you call the issue you have with it. You can call it a contradiction, you can be vague and evasive and change it to “problem areas”, I don’t care. Feel free.
I just want you to give an actual example of what you’re talking about. How does a government, as described by Ayn Rand, violate rights, or “run into problem areas”?
Nicky,
What you wrote was a contradiction. It’s a simple fact. You can’t have rights as the basis of government and then say rights only count when its practical, without contradicting yourself.
You seem to have trouble reading my posts, or at least remembering what I have written. I support the kind of capitalism Rand was advocating.
The problem is with your stating that the objectivist position on jurisdiction is territorial - then asserting pragmatics trumps rights - can you show me where you have concluded this from, given Rand’s arguments on it?
22 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
I firstly admit I have not read your links, so apologies if they address this.
OMG, you thought I was expecting you to have read 10 years old posts?! What gave you this idea? But I will assume that you read them by now default_smile.png
22 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
Let’s take as our starting point two claims you seem to be making. 1) the legitimacy of a regime comes from respecting the individual rights of its citizens and 2) the jurisdiction of the regime territorially does not stem from what its citizens own.
Have I got this starting point right?
Yes, this is quite right.
22 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
In this case, I would understand your claim to be that Israel would be legitimate not because the territory of Israel belongs to Israelis but because the government respects the rights of its Israeli citizens.
This is correct, essentially.
[However, I am not sure what you mean here, and further down, by “Israelis”. I’ll assume you include all citizens of the State of Israel, of any ethnicity, and even non-citizen residents. They all should have they rights respected. Just to be sure, I will mention that in Israel (as before in British and Ottoman Palestine) land is owned by Jews, by Arabs, Christians and what not, not all of them being necessarily Israeli citizens – or even residents. Also, big chunks of land are owned by communes and by the state. Like everywhere, as you can see.]
22 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
At some point in the past, the land purchased was in a territory under a different government than the emergent Israeli state. Is your view that the justification for Israeli land owners establishing their own territory governed by its own state that the prior regime was failing to protect and respect the rights of those who later establised the Israeli state?
No, it is absolutely not my view. Because:
- it was not the Israeli (??) land owners who established the State of Israel,
- neither was it Israelis or even Jews,
- Israel was not established according to the pattern you described above – by separating from another state which was failing to protect their rights.
In fact, the State of Israel was established by fiat – by a UN-GA Resolution (181/1947), in which the above factors played no role.
It is not my view that the legitimacy of Israel comes from this or any other UN resolution. According to my - universal - principle, it comes solely from it respecting rights. As soon as it will become a tyranny, Israel will become illegitimate.
22 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
If Objectivist land owners in America felt that their rights were being abused in various ways, for example by tax and regulations, and decided to establish a government that would not violate their rights, then given what they would create would be a better regime for protecting and respecting the rights of self-designated Objectivists, would this justify the creation of an Objectivist state separate from the US in your view?
No, it would not.
Not for the reasons you gave and irrespective of whether they are Objectivists or not, land owners or not. The only circumstance in which I would find the (violent) separation acceptable would be to split from a dictatorship and only in order to establish a rights-respecting government. This is, btw, the same principle as for the legitimacy of overthrowing of a government.
22 hours ago, Jon Southall said:
What would be different about this scenario compared to Israel?
I guess the question is already answered, isn’t it?
On 12/23/2015 at 2:59 AM, DonAthos said:
The government of the United States … does not “essentially” respect rights. It funds (nearly) its every activity through coercive taxation, … draft, eminent domain, protectionist trade policies, the drug war, laws against prostitution…
No, the United States is indeed an essentially rights respecting country. USA is not a dictatorship, so that there still are peaceful ways to correct the problems you’ve mentioned: taxation, draft (there is presently no draft in USA!!!), eminent domain, etc. As long as there is an important degree of freedom of expression (press, etc.), of association (political parties), free elections, all of the above are correctable.
Quote
Ayn Rand: A dictatorship is a country … whose government holds total, unlimited power over men. There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule—executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political offenses—the nationalization or expropriation of private property—and censorship.
In such a country there is no peaceful way to perform a change to a rights-respecting country (except very special circumstances where the ruling clique is abandoning power – like in most East-European communist countries in the 90’).
On 12/23/2015 at 2:59 AM, DonAthos said:
I do not agree that any government … may violate my rights because it proposes to violate them “only a little,” or “less than others might.” I do not consent to this; do you? … This isn’t merely a rhetorical question, and I would love to know your sincere answer. Do you consent that others may violate your rights “a little bit,” because you consider them (or the laws which they purportedly serve) to be “essentially rights-respecting”?
Yes, I do consent to a government which is not a dictatorship and which, therefore, leaves us open the possibility to improve it by peaceful means. If this is the case, the degree of extra freedom above the basics depends on the dominant philosophy of the society – which you are free to try to change. If you are trying to change it by force, you impose on most of the people conceptions which they do not share, and this is a totalitarian habit. But you agreed yourself: “I will not initiate the use of force, but I reserve the right to defend myself against force. … as far as it is within my means and deemed for my benefit”. This is exactly what I mean “giving consent” – agreeing to remain within the system. Consent cannot mean to agree with each governmental action and with each official – such a consent is simply impossible and is, therefore, an anti-concept.
On 12/23/2015 at 2:59 AM, DonAthos said:
Suppose… hmm, suppose that the people of Alaska … decided that their regional interests were not being served by the American government in Washington, D.C., and voted to form their own nation (which would pursue oil drilling to a greater extent; let us say, for simplicity, that this is the salient difference). Would you agree that they had the right to do so?
Only if the Constitution foresees such a procedure, which I guess is not the case. So that the answer is: no. But… there are peaceful ways to obtain oil drilling to a greater extent; there are also peaceful ways of changing the Constitution…
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
No, the United States is indeed an essentially rights respecting country.
I don’t know what to say to this, except that I continue to disagree. I don’t believe that a country which routinely violates the rights of its citizens, and which has these violations enshrined in laws on every level, and which funds these violations through further violation, can sensibly be described as “essentially rights-respecting.” This strikes me as a misuse of the term “essentially,” at the very least.
But if you continue to insist that the US government is “essentially rights-respecting,” then rather than allow this to become an impasse to our conversation, I’ll say “so be it; but then being ‘essentially rights-respecting’ is meaningless, because a government can be ‘essentially rights-respecting’ in your view yet violate its citizens’ rights continuously, widely, and flagrantly.”
I do not consent to a government which violates its citizens’ rights continuously, widely, and flagrantly, however else you might wish to characterize it.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
USA is not a dictatorship…
I did not say that it was a dictatorship.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
…so that there still are peaceful ways to correct the problems you’ve mentioned: taxation, draft (there is presently no draft in USA!!!)…
Quote
Conscription in the United States , commonly known as the draft , has been employed by the federal government on three occasions. The third incarnation of the draft came into being in 1940 through the Selective Training and Service Act. It was the country’s first peacetime draft. From 1940 until 1973, during both peacetime and periods of conflict, men were drafted to fill vacancies in the armed forces which could not be filled through voluntary means. The draft was ended when the United States military moved to an all-volunteer military force. However, the Selective Service System remains in place as a contingency plan; men between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to register so that a draft can be readily resumed if needed.
Perhaps one (or both) of us is splitting hairs, but being as I personally was required by law to register for the Selective Service (“as a contingency plan”), I feel comfortable saying that the United States still has a draft requirement, even if there is no active conscription.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
…eminent domain, etc. As long as there is an important degree of freedom of expression (press, etc.), of association (political parties), free elections, all of the above are correctable.
Perhaps they are correctable (though as the expression has it, “I would not hold my breath”). In the meantime, the government routinely initiates the use of force against its citizenry, and I do not consent to that.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
In [a dictatorship as defined by Ayn Rand] there is no peaceful way to perform a change to a rights-respecting country (except very special circumstances where the ruling clique is abandoning power – like in most East-European communist countries in the 90’).
Could there exist finer gradations between “dictatorship” and “essentially rights-respecting”?
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
Yes, I do consent to a government which is not a dictatorship and which, therefore, leaves us open the possibility to improve it by peaceful means.
I asked whether you consented to having your rights violated “a little bit.”* Since you’ve responded in the affirmative, then I take it that you do consent to having your rights violated… perhaps in the service of what you believe to be some “greater good,” I don’t honestly know.
But here, again, we must part company, and this time I see no potential way to bridge this gap other than for one or the other of us to cross sides completely.
I would describe the attitude you’re expressing here as “the sanction of the victim.” You’re saying that others will violate your rights, and that you give your consent for them to do this; you agree that what they do, they have the right to do.
If this is not what you’re saying, I heartily invite your clarification/correction.
__________________________________________
*For context, here is the question as it was phrased:
Do you consent that others may violate your rights “a little bit,” because you consider them (or the laws which they purportedly serve) to be “essentially rights-respecting”?
I understand that you’ve qualified your answer, but the bolded part remains, in my estimation, the important part.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
If this is the case, the degree of extra freedom above the basics depends on the dominant philosophy of the society – which you are free to try to change. If you are trying to change it by force, you impose on most of the people conceptions which they do not share, and this is a totalitarian habit.
“Extra freedom above the basics”? I don’t think I look upon things like being opposed to eminent domain, or coercive redistribution of wealth, or suffocating regulation, as a search for “extra freedom.” And if we have people in prison for decades, for things which ought not be crimes at all, then I cannot agree that we have yet achieved “the basics.”
On the subject of using force to create a society based upon liberty (i.e. where that force is used only in retaliation against those who initiate it, to defend the innocent in the name of justice), I’ll only say that I think it’s… amusing to see this described as “a totalitarian habit.”
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
But you agreed yourself: “I will not initiate the use of force, but I reserve the right to defend myself against force. … as far as it is within my means and deemed for my benefit”. This is exactly what I mean “giving consent” – agreeing to remain within the system.
My choices are not directed in order to “remain within the system”; I don’t give a damn about the system (and it does not give a damn about me, I’m sure), but certainly I might play along, insofar as it is within my interest.
I do not agree that this is “giving consent” at all. Or it is the kind of “consent” a POW might employ, in satisfying his captor’s demands while he searches for a suitable escape tunnel. In this case, however, with the world being what it is, the actual escape I search for is something like “a better future.”
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
Consent cannot mean to agree with each governmental action and with each official – such a consent is simply impossible and is, therefore, an anti-concept.
No, nor is that what “consent” means in my usage. To clarify my usage, I could envision consenting to a government, as such, which then might be subject to the occasional misuse of authority, or corrupt official, or honest mistake, or etc. These would be rightly considered aberrations, and would not speak to the essential character of the government in question (which would truly be “essentially rights-respecting”), and would not necessarily shake my consent/my affirmation that it is right for this government to exercise the power that they claim, and furthermore, that they do it in my name.
But in the case of the United States government, that’s not what we’re talking about at all.
If you live in the United States, your rights will be violated, by the Government, as a matter of routine and as a matter of policy. We cannot avoid but recognize these facts (except through great evasion), and to consent to the government of the United States must certainly mean to consent to what they routinely do, the means they routinely employ, and etc. It will not do merely to point to the Constitution and say, “well, they mean well.” (Or that they did, once upon a time, if that is even true.) To consent to this sort of government is to agree that it is acceptable for some to initiate the use of force against others, because that is precisely what this government does, and all the time. To consent to this is moral complicity.
2 hours ago, AlexL said:
Only if the Constitution foresees such a procedure, which I guess is not the case. So that the answer is: no. But… there are peaceful ways to obtain oil drilling to a greater extent; there are also peaceful ways of changing the Constitution…
Well, then, I continue to not understand what you mean by “consent of the governed,” if the people of Alaska would have no means to set up their own government…
But forget the US Constitution for a moment and envision your ideal society. Suppose that it overlaps, geographically, with the present United States, and then ask yourself whether Alaska ought have the right to withdraw from the larger government in order to set up its own state.
What say you? Do they have the right to govern themselves–withdrawing their consent, formally, from this larger group in order to create a smaller government–or do they not?
On 12/24/2015 at 2:01 AM, Jon Southall said:
Nicky,
What you wrote was a contradiction. It’s a simple fact. You can’t have rights as the basis of government and then say rights only count when its practical, without contradicting yourself.
You seem to have trouble reading my posts, or at least remembering what I have written. I support the kind of capitalism Rand was advocating.
The problem is with your stating that the objectivist position on jurisdiction is territorial - then asserting pragmatics trumps rights - can you show me where you have concluded this from, given Rand’s arguments on it?
The kind of capitalism Rand was advocating is territorial. I didn’t “conclude” it from anywhere, it’s a well known fact. I read it in a book she authored.
On 12/24/2015 at 2:01 AM, Jon Southall said:
Nicky,
What you wrote was a contradiction. It’s a simple fact. You can’t have rights as the basis of government and then say rights only count when its practical, without contradicting yourself.
You keep saying that. And then when I ask you to give an example of how the territorial government Rand describes in her non-fiction violates rights, you claim you never said it does. And then, two posts later, you make the claim again, and then I ask for an example again, and then you deny you said it again.
And over and over and…oh wait, no, I believe this is where this cycle ends.
On 12/24/2015 at 2:01 AM, Jon Southall said:
Nicky,
What you wrote was a contradiction. It’s a simple fact. You can’t have rights as the basis of government and then say rights only count when its practical, without contradicting yourself.
You seem to have trouble reading my posts, or at least remembering what I have written. I support the kind of capitalism Rand was advocating.
The problem is with your stating that the objectivist position on jurisdiction is territorial - then asserting pragmatics trumps rights - can you show me where you have concluded this from, given Rand’s arguments on it?
The kind of capitalism Rand was advocating is territorial. I didn’t “conclude” it from anywhere, it’s a well known fact. I read it in a book she authored.
On 12/24/2015 at 2:01 AM, Jon Southall said:
Nicky,
What you wrote was a contradiction. It’s a simple fact. You can’t have rights as the basis of government and then say rights only count when its practical, without contradicting yourself.
You keep saying that. And then when I ask you to give an example of how the territorial government Rand describes in her non-fiction violates rights, you claim you never said it does. And then, two posts later, you make the claim again, and then I ask for an example again, and then you deny you said it again.
And over and over and…oh wait, no, I believe this is where this cycle ends.
Nicky,
The issue you keep missing/avoiding is your assertion that pragmatics trumps rights.
Nicky,
You keep avoiding your contradiction. You asserted that the basis for the territorial argument is pragmatics. Rand mentioned a territorial approach but did not present an argument for why it must be so - so where are you getting this from? You argued before that pragmatics trumps rights, but I don’t think you will find this argued for in Objectivist literature.
Please read the full comment before starting to answer default_smile.png
On 12/25/2015 at 2:03 AM, DonAthos said:
Could there exist finer gradations between “dictatorship” and “essentially rights-respecting”?
No, not for the purpose of granting or denying consent. The “consent” which appears here is the one which is the source of government’s authority, or state legitimacy (as in " The source of the government’s authority is ‘the consent of the governed.’) Loss of consent means loss of legitimacy, and loss of legitimacy entails the right of people to forcibly overthrow the government and change the régime. But not so when the desired result fails to pass the test of the lawful political process.
The forcible overthrow of the government is morally justified only if there are no peaceful means to change the government, the laws, the policies. That is, when the political process – elections, political parties, freedom of press and of association – is blocked, when we have tyranny.
The consent of the kind you seem to envision – everyone is satisfied with everything – is impossible to obtain and absurd to expect. This is why I called your kind of consent an anti-concept.
I have also noted that you stated yourself that :
Quote
I will not initiate the use of force, but I reserve the right to defend myself against force. … as far as it is within my means and deemed for my benefit
This is exactly what I mean “giving consent” – agreeing to remain “within the system”, that is to use its tools to obtain the change. I repeat: as long as the country is not a dictatorship, the government policies reflect – more or less – the dominant views of its citizens. Under those circumstances, forcibly removing such a government means forcing your ideas on the rest of society. Which is a totalitarian endeavor indeed.
Nothing of the above is new, I said all of it before. Likewise, I have nothing new to say about the Alaska business.
P.S.
On 12/25/2015 at 2:03 AM, DonAthos said:
You’re saying that others will violate your rights, and that you give your consent for them to do this; you agree that what they do, they have the right to do.
Not at all! I hope you understand by now that my consent goes only to the legitimacy of the government, not to its rights violations – as long as the peaceful corrections to those rights violations are possible in principle, and depend on the philosophy of the public.
5 hours ago, AlexL said:
Please read the full comment before starting to answer default_smile.png
I have read your full comment, just as I have always read your full comment before beginning any reply, and typically more than once.
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No, not for the purpose of granting or denying consent. The “consent” which appears here is the one which is the source of government’s authority, or state legitimacy (as in " The source of the government’s authority is ‘the consent of the governed.’) Loss of consent means loss of legitimacy, and loss of legitimacy entails the right of people to forcibly overthrow the government and change the régime. But not so when the desired result fails to pass the test of the lawful political process.
The forcible overthrow of the government is morally justified only if there are no peaceful means to change the government, the laws, the policies. That is, when the political process – elections, political parties, freedom of press and of association – is blocked, when we have tyranny.
I’m getting lost in the multiplying verbiage. “The test of the lawful political process”? I don’t know what that refers to. And who exactly (besides yourself) is talking about “the forcible overthrow of the government”? Now we also have to deal with “legitimacy”?
Let’s try to be clear(er) about this, if we can:
Insofar as a state claims the right to violate the rights of others (as our running example, the US Government, does), then it is not “legitimate.” There is no such thing as the right to violate the rights of others, regardless of what the voting populace may believe at any given time.
Consider this (from Galt’s speech):
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The source of man’s rights is not divine law or congressional law, but the law of identity. A is A—and Man is Man. Rights are conditions of existence required by man’s nature for his proper survival. If man is to live on earth, it is right for him to use his mind, it is right to act on his own free judgment, it is right to work for his values and to keep the product of his work. If life on earth is his purpose, he has a right to live as a rational being: nature forbids him the irrational. Any group, any gang, any nation that attempts to negate man’s rights, is wrong, which means: is evil, which means: is anti-life.
But this is the very evil you are currently defending: those groups which not only attempt, but do indeed negate man’s rights… and continually so. You mean to clothe this evil and make it more palatable by pronouncing their actions “legitimate.” (Or you do so unintentionally.)
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The consent of the kind you seem to envision – everyone is satisfied with everything – is impossible to obtain and absurd to expect. This is why I called your kind of consent an anti-concept.
Except that you are mischaracterizing what I’ve said. Nowhere have I said that consent is “everyone is satisfied with everything,” and in the very post to which you’re responding, I tried to clarify that very misconception, saying:
On 12/25/2015 at 5:03 PM, DonAthos said:
No, nor is [your characterization] what “consent” means in my usage. To clarify my usage, I could envision consenting to a government, as such, which then might be subject to the occasional misuse of authority, or corrupt official, or honest mistake, or etc. These would be rightly considered aberrations, and would not speak to the essential character of the government in question (which would truly be “essentially rights-respecting”), and would not necessarily shake my consent/my affirmation that it is right for this government to exercise the power that they claim, and furthermore, that they do it in my name.
Do you understand my meaning now, or do I need to elaborate further? For safety’s sake, I am not saying that “consent” is “everyone is satisfied with everything”; but that it is an affirmation that it is right for the government to exercise the power which they claim. I am saying I allow for mistakes in the exercise of this power, or even occasional malfeasance (which are aberrations, when the government in question truly is “essentially rights-respecting”), which would not necessarily diminish the aforementioned consent.
I am also saying, however, that it is improper to consent to a system which violates others’ rights as a matter of routine and policy (which is true of, say, the current government of the United States).
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This is exactly what I mean “giving consent” – agreeing to remain “within the system”, that is to use its tools to obtain the change.
Yes, you’ve said this before… seemingly verbatim, and I disagreed that what I mean is that I “agree to remain ‘within the system.’” I don’t know why you’ve repeated this, rather than respond to the manner in which I’ve expressed my disagreement the first time, but I hold that you are still mistaken.
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I repeat: as long as the country is not a dictatorship, the government policies reflect – more or less – the dominant views of its citizens. Under those circumstances, forcibly removing such a government means forcing your ideas on the rest of society. Which is a totalitarian endeavor indeed.
If some minority believed in their own liberty (as per Objectivism) and enforced this upon the rest of the world through the threat of retaliatory force, though everyone else disagreed, it would not be “totalitarian.”
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Nothing of the above is new, I said all of it before. Likewise, I have nothing new to say about the Alaska business.
Which is a shame, because I believe that “the Alaska business” speaks to an important matter. Since I still do not know your views (let alone your reasoning), I am left to guess: I suppose that you believe that, given a US government run according to Objectivist principles, that Alaska would yet have no right to secede and form its own state. That it ought have no such right.
Is that correct? Or have I got it wrong?
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Not at all! I hope you understand by now that my consent goes only to the legitimacy of the government, not to its rights violations – as long as the peaceful corrections to those rights violations are possible in principle, and depend on the philosophy of the public.
I do not understand the notion that a government which routinely violates the rights of its citizens (the very thing that, in theory, it is designed to prevent) can be “legitimate.” And I do not understand the idea that a person may consent to a rights-abusing government, yet pretend that this act of consent does not speak to that abuse.