National Collective Responsibility

[Carinthium]

Conceding the argument on the Aboriginals, as there is one unaswerable argument already.

No, you don't. You don't understand what freedom actually is. It's the ability to choose ones actions responsibly and have as many options as possible. It's NOT "do whatever you want" or "do something without being told to do so", which is what most children typically use that word for.

Can you actually demonstrate this claim?

In order to have anything even remotely called freedom, it is inevitable that you are part of a society that follows rules.
If you are NOT part of such a society, everyone is free to opress you if he is stronger than you in some way. Everyone is free to cheat on you. Without some sort of social contract (which is really just a fancy name for evolved, instinctive morals), you can not possibly be as free as you are right now - your choice of options and your ability to chose will be severely reduced.
Even if you had a large area of land (or a whole planet) completely for yourself, you would enjoy considerably less freedom of action than you currently do, since nearly all your actions would revolve around survival - you are forced into them by necessity. Again, your options and ability to chose would be severely reduced.

I am NOT advocating the obliteration of society- I am advocating that those who DO NOT WANT to be a part of society have the choice, and societies will either giving people explicit contracts to live in their national borders (with an alternative avaliable for those who refuse to have any responsibilities to society) or let people act with obligations (or different governments taking different options, of course). The exceptions would be when it comes to restricting other people's freedom (stems from having such a right in the first place). Punishments for stealing are a little ethically dubious, but I would definitly support the government protecting property under the later models.

So if we actually implement what you want, even partially, we will inevitably destroy some freedom we currently enjoy - not to mention large parts of the structure of our society, along with all the benefits that entails.

I am advocating the abolition of RESPONSIBILITIES TO SOCIETY, rather than society itself.

Guess what - there were very little war reparation for West Germany, and it didn't loose any of it's territory (except by the creation of the DDR of course).
Oh, you DO know that Germany was seperated into two different states, do you?

I was arguing that the reparations were morally wrong- the amount was irrelevant to if they were or not (as opposed to the degree).

WHICH MORAL SYSTEM ARE YOU ADVOCATING?
You have been challenged repedeately to present your system. You have utterly failed to do so. Since you are not actually arguing for something, you are actually not arguing at all - you are just randomly disagreeing with things without advancing any alternative (not even an unviable one).

Present the moral system you are arguing for, and show how it works as an alternative to the current ones.

1- I don't think the views I'm arguing for fall into any formal system (as far as I know). I'd give them a formal name that best fits them, but I'm not sure what a good one would be.
2- The core axioms of such a system are protecting human rights- life, liberty, and property (negative rights, not positive rights- it is morally wrong to take them away, but if somebody loses them by their own foolishness or bad luck that's their problem).
3- Any argument for the superiority of one moral system over another would assume an axiom about what is "objectively" good (or assumed good for some reason). Because of this, the result is an infinite regress of values.

Stating an argument is no valid just because its the norm is not a refutation for the following reasons.
1. My position was not dependent on the fact that "this is the norm"
2. Just because something is the norm doesn't make it necessary wrong either, so shouting the opposite does not refute it.

If you want to play it that way, its more of a government is obligated to fix the actions of its predecessor(s). The same logic applies to legal entities which are counted as "a person", for example companies. To elaborate further, if you do not think a government (or company) is obligated to fix the actions of its predecessors, explain why

a) a country still owes financial debt despite a change in government, after all current British people weren't fighting in WWII, yet only in the last few years did the UK pay off its war debt. The same rationale can be used by any country to avoid paying its debt. If you think financial debt in the form of lending is different from debt in the form of reparations / compensation / money spent to correct mistakes etc, explain why.

b) how can Australian company James Hardie be forced to pay compensation to its workers from asbestos exposure, after all, the current board weren't responsible for those policies.

Your assumption is wrong for most counts. Because most people are willing to benefit from society and gain the privileges of citizenship. The fact you don't want to run off to Antartica demonstrates case in point. Even if you say you will buy the equipment to allow you to live in isolated shithole A (as per your reply to Lusankanya), your debt to the seller may be resolved, but your debt to society isn't, because society created the legal tender which you used to pay off the seller.

But you know whats funny. You want this principle (of cancelling debts) to apply to all nations iiregardless of whether these people choose to live in society. Thus you decrease the very freedom you purport to maximise. Comedy gold.

If you want to play it that way, its more of a government is obligated to fix the actions of its predecessor(s). The same logic applies to legal entities which are counted as "a person", for example companies. To elaborate further, if you do not think a government (or company) is obligated to fix the actions of its predecessors, explain why

a) a country still owes financial debt despite a change in government, after all current British people weren't fighting in WWII, yet only in the last few years did the UK pay off its war debt. The same rationale can be used by any country to avoid paying its debt. If you think financial debt in the form of lending is different from debt in the form of reparations / compensation / money spent to correct mistakes etc, explain why.

b) how can Australian company James Hardie be forced to pay compensation to its workers from asbestos exposure, after all, the current board weren't responsible for those policies.

Clearly an appeal to the norm. Because it is an invalid argument, you have no argument so I can ignore it just like I can the possibility of unicorns.

Given the problem of existing debts, I'd create a grandfather clause rather than abolish all current government debts alltogether.

So where do you live? Are you stateless? Do you live a region where the government lacks control, for example regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan? But I bet you you live in either a first world or second world nation which actually has a government.

True but irrelevant.

I am judging whats best based on outcome. You can use "pragmatic considerations" as a synonym for outcome as you wish, however you clearly use outcome measures as well. You use the outcome measure "freedom". So why is your outcome freedom better than say, standard of living which was the measure in my examples.

As I said above, any attempt to prove the superiority of one moral system over another leads to an infinite regress of value claims.

You obviously missed the part where I explained why. Your definition of the words are not the usual context, ie they are too broad, hence its an example of equivocation. Failure to read an opponent's arguments doesn't make you look better.

the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints

A dictionary definition I checked up. Seems to fit my use fairly well.

Then its pointless to talk about freedom in this context, because by your own definition and admission nothing is totally free.

My argument is that given that humans are nowhere near the amount of freedom they could have had, that nobody actually agrees to the responsibilties of the social fiction of the social contract, and as a side point, that the idea of individuals as being naturally free which most Western thought is made a mockery of by modern restraints, that the status quo is grossly unjust.

I was refering to the freedom to curtail their parent's right to look after their kids, not the freedom of the kids.

Why should they have such a right, assuming there is an even slightly better outcome in which they don't?

So I will rephrase it. This guy is super Randroid.

If you have to use that sort of insult, that's better- I'll drop the point.

Somalia, Waziristan and many other places do not really have a government controlling them. The risk of order being restored is something you can take if you are a true anarchist. This is why all anarchists who freeload on massive first-world welfare systems are hypocrites. If they were serious about anarchy, they would travel to an anarchic territory.

Arguments from hypocrisy aren't actually valid, but I'll answer your argument.

There are a lot of types of anarchists. Orthodox Anarcho-Capitalists would argue they are under no obligations to forfeit their property rights, Anarchists who are sufficently poor might not be able to afford a trip to Somalia, and so on.

Even checking Wikipedia, I find out that Somalia is moving towards order as we speak anyway. Waziristan (again, checked Wikipedia) has traditional tribal leaders who'd drive me off their land, and is only lawless because of the Taliban anyway- once the Afganistan crisis is resolved in ten-twenty years or so, order is likely to be restored.

Um... "Rules that are to be obeyed" for children are, generally, his or her responsibilities. These are probably the first responsibilities a child gets - ones put forth by its parents, who fully supply the child and demand him follow the rules in return. After he reaches maturity, he can either ignore the rules set by his parents (or, for that matter, all other rules set in society), or he can conform. Social responsibility includes many things. I think people taught you not to litter, right? This is part of the conditioning - you get stuff from the society, you use the streets and roads. It is only natural that you should not litter. Later on come the taxes and other stuff which is also explained to people - in school, I presume, if the society is advanced enough.

Responsibilities are not necessarily to society- children are taught them as blind rules without even considering why as I said.

Your argument falls apart because the average man in the street doesn't understand social contract theory and because some academics are opposed to it. If it were implicit in everybody, it would likely be almost unopposed from the start except by vested interests.

No, the community is not "non-coercive". Even lacking a formal government, the community can simply gather and decide you're a jackass who has to be killed. Like tribes did before they had a formal government - they had these gatherings of all members with a form of direct democracy on every important decision. So even without the government there can be society, there can be coercion and there can be responsibilities put on you by other institutions. The family is not a government, a tribe or community is not a government, the gang outside on the road are not a government. However, they are parts of the society (and in some cases, they are the entirety of the society available to the person). And they can be coercive.

Slightly parochial view there- I was thinking of in the modern Western world. Like most people, I'm fairly ignorant of Third World affairs so I'm focusing my argument on the First World situation.

(The same principle about coercion being morally wrong applies, however)

Actually, they sort of are. Unless they get a mighty backer (like Indonesia getting US backing for its policies), they might face problems down the road. And this tends to keep some of them cool-headed.

Can you give some actual examples of where this claimed deterrent has been sucessful?

If occupation happens, then reparations also happen. Germany looted industry from captured territories, destroyed industry which was there and killed tons of people in occupied lands. It would be a complete diplomatic collapse if Germany would get out free for everything it did.

Since we're going into scenarios which were ludicrous given what the Soviets would insist on anyway, I'll point out that it could have been reparations from individuals rather than the government. The people who killed would be charged with murder at war crimes tribunals (if the pretence of the rule of law is to be thrown out the window they may as well go the whole hog) and executed.

Society does not have rights. It provides them to people (or, more to the point, certain people provide rights to other people). People do not have rights by fiat either.

If society does not have rights, how can people have responsibilities to it?

What contradicts utilitarianism? How is this position not justified? If a level of freedom X starts to cause suffering, it is probably better to go to the previous level where suffering was lower, or at a lowest point. That makes sense no matter which "principles" you subscribe to, unless you do not subscribe to humanism, and instead of humans you prefer to put something else as the highest value.

The thing which contradicts utilitarianism was your mentioning utilitarianism as a simpler system as if it were a merit.

Your new argument seems to be calling on the idea of an implicit principle that suffering is always bad- can you establish that principle, or is it an axiom?

The British Empire's loot got to the upper classes, but at some point the very status of Britain as the metropole started benefitting the people. A British citizen was enjoying all benefits of industrialization which other nations did not have.

Let me try to illustrate a point to you which you don't seem to have grasped.

In a situation where there is free trade, national borders are economic irrelevancies- there are transaction costs, but stimulating one economic area will have limited effects on the surrounding areas irrespective of national borders.

In Britain at the time, industrialisation did not occur everywhere at the same time- it occured in regions. Some British citizens (mostly in England at first, presumably) benefited as a result of this, but others (such as those in India or Ireland) did not. By the time Ireland was industrialised the head start was at best minor.

No, it cannot. Individuals in a nation would not voluntarily give their money to others who might have been harmed by the actions of the military of their nation. A tax and reparation rectifies the problem. Resorting to individual lawsuits would be preposterous, especially considering the often disparate income levels of people and the failure of the justice system to treat them equally.

LIKE YOU CLAIMED TO, I'm ignoring pragmatic considerations here. However, they aren't as great as you seem to think- individuals would be forced to give reparations thruogh the civil system, and the "blood out of a stone" scenario would have to be accepted as it is morally wrong to rob Peter to pay Paul.

See what we discussed before. If you are too cowardly to fight with something you do not agree with, this means you take a part of the responsibility. It is a small part, but a part nonetheless. End of story.

So anybody living in any of the Allied Powers who had an inkling the Holocaust was going on takes some responsibility for it because they didn't join the army to fight it? It's not a technically valid point, but it should be pointed out for those who care.

Since in practice you seem to be including pragmatic considerations, I'll point out that this would mean everybody in the First World would be practically slaves to the cause of uplifting the Third World, getting rid of drugs, and making sure that there weren't criminal muggings they might have stopped.

*shrugs* Because you had other options and did not take them, which means you prefer the benefits of society. Easy.

As a matter of fact (I've checked my finances lately, and I suspected otherwise which is why I'm only saying this now), I couldn't afford an overseas trip if I wanted to. Where does this leave me?

It's not so much compromise as bumping up against real-world limitations. Sure, person A might be obligated to pay money to person B, but if person A suffers misfortune (hurricane, earthquake, whatever) that leaves person A without money or material goods then person A can not pay person B. You might want to be free to sit on a riverbank and daydream all day, but if you do that you'll starve to death either because you aren't earning money to buy food, or you aren't busy growing your own food.

You seem to be inconsistent here. Hypothetical scenario:

It is a fairly ordinary civil suit- Person A is suing Person B for damage to property. In this case, Person B cannot afford to pay.

Judging from this argument alone, it seems you will advocating taking money from Person C, an unrelated rich buystaner, to pay Person A.

I would also argue that people are free to sit on a riverbank and dream all day- they die after about 2-3 days, but that's their own fault.

Correct – there are no technologies that weren't learned from society. Humans do not exist outside of technology. Therefore you can never be free of society.

Well, maybe if you were a feral child – but then you wouldn't be posting here. Feral children – those who are free of society during their formative years – typically lack human language and have to be housebroken like an animal. Sure, they're free of society – so free of it they don't even have the option to join if they want to because lack of society in their formative years has irreparably damaged them. They are lesser human beings, utterly dependent on the charity of others, or else utterly dependent on a daily struggle for survival and/or stealing from others to get by.

Humans are social animals. They need other people.

Now that you've clarified your position (and contradicted your earlier argument, since if I can't be free from society I can't be expected to do anything to become free of it), I'll point out that you seem to have one fundemental axiom- you implicitly claim that people must repay to society indirect benefits gained from society, even if they did not ask for them.

Obviously I have benefited from society- I was only suggesting the possibility of going out to sea due to illustrating (I thought) where your argument led. But I didn't ask for them, and nobody demanded services in return in exchange for them- because of this, I owe society nothing.

Reality messing up your theory again? I thought you weren't considering the pragmatic.

I exclude the pragmatic from moral principles. Not plans to ensure that moral principles are applied in the world. (Although they are under the restriction not to break any of said principles)

No coercion, just massive amounts of propaganda. Propaganda is an attempt at verbal coercion,

It's not coercion- it's persuasion. People can choose to ignore it or to listen and decide not to do it.

And what creates enjoyment isn't always about efficiency. Much of what compromises what people do in their free time has zero to do with efficiency.

Yes, but material living standard is a significant part of enjoyment. You also have not demonstrated how people enjoy tribal communism.

Beyond that, though, the structure of such tribal societies leads to a sort of collective insurance – true, in good times the individual does not benefit as much as under other systems, but during times of hardship the individual can receive aid from others. This is a bargain so many people are willing to strike that societies keep reinventing such mechanisms over and over – among us non-tribals we call it “insurance” or a “social safety net”.

Such mechanisms are unjust unless agreed to- that's been part of my entire point.

Once again, you demonstrate you are a fucking ignorant twat.

The Cherokee nation has a constitution, which has been amended several times. The earliest one written down was in 1827 – it might have been earlier except they didn't have a writing system until the 1820's. The Lakota (Sioux) have a separate constitution for each of their five reservations. And so on. Next time at least check Wikipedia before you open your mouth and demonstrate what a fool you are.

The Six Nations (Iriquois) don't, as far as I know, have a written constitution but were voting on matters and electing tribal officials long before the Europeans showed up, and for most matters required not merely a majority but a supermajority of 75% to pass an initiative. Women had voting rights and veto powers equal to the men. Anyone who didn't like their system was free to leave, of course.

They aren't the only Native American groups, and unless they formally institute tribal communism they don't have enough spelled out.

GET OFF YOUR FAT, WHITE ASS AND LEARN SOME, THEN!

I'm half-Asian- yes I've made that mistake, but it's technically invalid.

Holy fuck, jackass, it's not like the information isn't out there. Globally, white people are a minority, you do know that, don't you? White history is only a slice of world history. Get fucking educated. Your mama will probably be happy to see you put down the Xbox controller and emerge from her basement.

I don't live in my mother's basement, and I don't own an Xbox. Professional (as opposed to quasi-amateurs such as myself) historians tend to specialise, and I have decided to go and do likewise- given my conservative upbringing I'd already learned a lot of history as taught in ideologically conservative schools, so I went from there.

What about the people who came along later, who had no part in the theft? How do we determine which land was legitimately purchased and which wasn't?

Evidence, and documentation.

How is it justified to reduce the descendants of people to poverty when those descendants themselves did nothing wrong?

The world does not owe them a living.

What do you do about people who aren't wholly one ethnic group or another?

Since the sad fact of the matter is that the tribes were collectivelly owned, do what the ancient tribesmen would have wanted- kick them out.

And what makes you think the rest of the world could absorb 300 million refugees from your scheme? What makes you think any welfare system could absorb that number of people? And how the hell are you going to move that many people out of North America? (Never mind Central and South America, where the same would apply. You're really talking about a billion people being moved to other continents)

The free market would provide- most of them would end up severely impoverished, but places like Belarus can always use skilled labour. The Western World, whether due to racism or preferring those with Western culture, would also be more inclined to accept them.

And what the hell makes you think EVERY Native is living in dire poverty? Sure, a lot of them are, but not all of them.

It was a generalisation.

This by the way, doesn't even begin to touch on Native reparations to African American descendants of slaves, as many Natives were slaveholders prior to the Civil war. At one time, the largest plantation with the greatest number of slaves in Georgia was owned by a Native family who were, by the way, fucking wealthy by anyone's standards. Except of course that their wealth was confiscated by whites so how the hell are the descendants of that family supposed to pay reparations to the descendants of their black slaves?

There is so much wrong from a merely practical standpoint with your scheme.

As I said, I ignore pragmatics. The natives can pay some of their new reparation money to the blacks if they can afford it- otherwise, it's metaphorical blood out of a stone.

We frown on moving goalposts here.

How did I move goalposts?

There is this thing called a “library” I suggest you look into as obviously the public education you were subjected to (assuming you had some education – you are, after all, able to type in English) clearly didn't take well. If navigating to the library is too difficult for you (perhaps you never learned that songline) there are these things called the “internet” and a “search engine” which will enable you to self-educate. Feel free to take advantage of them.

Frankly, I'd love to see you dropped into a state of “pure freedom” such as you envision. Unless you're seven feet tall with the muscles of a gorilla you'd soon learn the disadvantages of such a state for the average human being.

1- You have no reason to suspect the rest of my subjects were so poorly taught.
2- I'm not advocating pure freedom- I'm advocating that those who want it have the choice of it, and that people are free of responsibilities to society. (which is NOT the same as disbanding society)

You claim to have read literature on the social contract theory. I now call BS on that claim, because if you had, you would have had writers solving that problem.

O.K- admittedly I read this when I was studying Philosophy in Year 10. Maybe you could actually give me the relevant arguments?

That said, you also do not consent to the criminal law, but you still obey it, right? Or do you reject any law you do not consent to? Do you have a magic vision of all laws in the land being laid out for you and you consenting to them for them in order to be valid right after you are born? I guess that would be pretty silly, right?

So obviously there are laws and contracts which are binding over several generations, long after the original generation which consented to it (in this case: the founding fathers and their followers) are dead and gone. The social contract is one of them - it was reaffirmed in the constitution when said fathers were not willing to dissolve into anarchy.

If you reject the social contract, then I would also argue you move to Somalia.

1- I obey the criminal law out of fear.
2- I'd dislike it, but I wouldn't morally object to a system in which the hypothetical society contracts included a clause stating that one had to obey future laws established through due process.
3- The strawman view isn't even that disrespectable- some of the Founding Fathers wanted a change of Constitution every generation or so.

[Thanas]

You claim to have read literature on the social contract theory. I now call BS on that claim, because if you had, you would have had writers solving that problem.

O.K- admittedly I read this when I was studying Philosophy in Year 10. Maybe you could actually give me the relevant arguments?

No, because I have no interest to paraphrase them. I suggest you look up Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique, I.6 for starters, which states the basic principles of the social contract, because I suspect you have only a cursory understanding of the reasoning:

Je suppose les hommes parvenus à ce point où les obstacles qui nuisent à leur conservation dans l’état de nature l’emportent, par leur résistance, sur les forces que chaque individu peut employer pour se maintenir dans cet état. Alors cet état primitif ne peut plus subsister ; et le genre humain périrait s’il ne changeait de manière d’être.

Or, comme les hommes ne peuvent engendrer de nouvelles forces, mais seulement unir et diriger celles qui existent, ils n’ont plus d’autre moyen, pour se conserver, que de former par agrégation une somme de forces qui puisse l’emporter sur la résistance, de les mettre en jeu par un seul mobile et de les faire agir de concert.

Cette somme de forces ne peut naître que du concours de plusieurs ; mais la force et la liberté de chaque homme étant les premiers instruments de sa conservation, comment les engagera-t-il sans se nuire et sans négliger les soins qu’il se doit ? Cette difficulté, ramenée à mon sujet, peut s’énoncer en ces termes :

« Trouver une forme d’association qui défende et protège de toute la force commune la personne et les biens de chaque associé, et par laquelle chacun, s’unissant à tous, n’obéisse pourtant qu’à lui-même, et reste aussi libre qu’auparavant. » Tel est le problème fondamental dont le Contrat social donne la solution.

Les clauses de ce contrat sont tellement déterminées par la nature de l’acte, que la moindre modification les rendrait vaines et de nul effet ; en sorte que, bien qu’elles n’aient peut-être jamais été formellement énoncées, elles sont partout les mêmes, partout tacitement admises et reconnues, jusqu’à ce que, le pacte social étant violé, chacun rentre alors dans ses premiers droits, et reprenne sa liberté naturelle, en perdant la liberté conventionnelle pour laquelle il y renonça.

Ces clauses, bien entendues, se réduisent toutes à une seule - savoir, l’aliénation totale de chaque associé avec tous ses droits à toute la communauté : car, premièrement, chacun se donnant tout entier, la condition est égale pour tous ; et la condition étant égale pour tous, nul n’a intérêt de la rendre onéreuse aux autres.

De plus, l’aliénation se faisant sans réserve, l’union est aussi parfaite qu’elle peut l’être, et nul associé n’a plus rien à réclamer : car, s’il restait quelques droits aux particuliers, comme il n’y aurait aucun supérieur commun qui pût prononcer entre eux et le public, chacun, étant en quelque point son propre juge, prétendrait bientôt l’être en tous ; l’état de nature subsisterait, et l’association deviendrait nécessairement tyrannique ou vaine.

Enfin, chacun se donnant à tous ne se donne à personne ; et comme il n’y a pas un associé sur lequel on n’acquière le même droit qu’on lui cède sur soi, on gagne l’équivalent de tout ce qu’on perd, et plus de force pour conserver ce qu’on a.

Si donc on écarte du pacte social ce qui n’est pas de son essence, on trouvera qu’il se réduit aux termes suivants : « Chacun de nous met en commun sa personne et toute sa puissance sous la suprême direction de la volonté générale ; et nous recevons encore chaque membre comme partie indivisible du tout. »

A l’instant, au lieu de la personne particulière de chaque contractant, cet acte d’association produit un corps moral et collectif, composé d’autant de membres que l’assemblée a de voix, lequel reçoit de ce même acte son unité, son moi commun, sa vie et sa volonté. Cette personne publique, qui se forme ainsi par l’union de toutes les autres, prenait autrefois le nom de cité (a), et prend maintenant celui de république ou de corps politique, lequel est appelé par ses membres État quand il est passif, souverain quand il est actif, puissance en le comparant à ses semblables. À l’égard des associés, ils prennent collectivement le nom de peuple, et s’appellent en particulier citoyens, comme participant à l’autorité souveraine, et sujets, comme soumis aux lois de l’État. Mais ces termes se confondent souvent et se prennent l’un pour l’autre ; il suffit de les savoir distinguer quand ils sont employés dans toute leur précision.

1- I obey the criminal law out of fear.

So as we have now established that you obey laws out of fear, then why not also obey the social contract out of the same reason?

Roeusseau stated that men must be forced to be free, thus if an individual breaks the social contract he should be forced into it.

2- I'd dislike it, but I wouldn't morally object to a system in which the hypothetical society contracts included a clause stating that one had to obey future laws established through due process.

I don't understand that sentence.

3- The strawman view isn't even that disrespectable- some of the Founding Fathers wanted a change of Constitution every generation or so.

Yes, Jefferson for example. You are in luck, I wrote my constitutional law thesis on that one. However, too bad for you that Jefferson never rejected the idea of social contract. It is the very basis of his work. While Jefferson was perfectly fine with constitutions being renegotiated accordingly to the will of the people, he never even considered the non-existence of a social contract.

[Thanas]

Oh, just noticed there is an english translation:

http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm

[Broomstick]

My argument is that given that humans are nowhere near the amount of freedom they could have had, that nobody actually agrees to the responsibilties of the social fiction of the social contract

Funny, I though I saw people in this very thread agree to the concept of the social contract. You do realize that not every shares your stupid viewpoint, yes?

As a matter of fact (I've checked my finances lately, and I suspected otherwise which is why I'm only saying this now), I couldn't afford an overseas trip if I wanted to. Where does this leave me?

Get up off your fat, lazy ass and work as a crewman for passage. Is it that hard a concept? You want something then you trade something you have – your money, your labor, your asshole for the captain of a ship to ass-fuck – for something you want. Like passage to a lawless territory. I would have thought a free-market Randroid such as yourself would understand how that works.

It's not so much compromise as bumping up against real-world limitations. Sure, person A might be obligated to pay money to person B, but if person A suffers misfortune (hurricane, earthquake, whatever) that leaves person A without money or material goods then person A can not pay person B. You might want to be free to sit on a riverbank and daydream all day, but if you do that you'll starve to death either because you aren't earning money to buy food, or you aren't busy growing your own food.

You seem to be inconsistent here. Hypothetical scenario:

It is a fairly ordinary civil suit- Person A is suing Person B for damage to property. In this case, Person B cannot afford to pay.

Judging from this argument alone, it seems you will advocating taking money from Person C, an unrelated rich buystaner, to pay Person A.

Nope, that is NOT my point at all, once again you are trying to hammer inconvenient items into your preconceived world view. What I am saying is that Person B can't compensate Person A then person A is shit out of luck. That's how it works in the real world. I said nothing about taking money from anyone else, YOU pulled that out of your ass-of-holding which is so full of knee jerk assumptions that it's a wonder there's room for shit in your colon.

I would also argue that people are free to sit on a riverbank and dream all day- they die after about 2-3 days, but that's their own fault.

You fucking retard – you don't starve to death in “2-3 days”. You are SUCH a moron. Do you have ANY actual knowledge of the real world?

Correct – there are no technologies that weren't learned from society. Humans do not exist outside of technology. Therefore you can never be free of society.

Well, maybe if you were a feral child – but then you wouldn't be posting here. Feral children – those who are free of society during their formative years – typically lack human language and have to be housebroken like an animal. Sure, they're free of society – so free of it they don't even have the option to join if they want to because lack of society in their formative years has irreparably damaged them. They are lesser human beings, utterly dependent on the charity of others, or else utterly dependent on a daily struggle for survival and/or stealing from others to get by.

Humans are social animals. They need other people.

Now that you've clarified your position (and contradicted your earlier argument, since if I can't be free from society I can't be expected to do anything to become free of it), I'll point out that you seem to have one fundemental axiom- you implicitly claim that people must repay to society indirect benefits gained from society, even if they did not ask for them.

You know, if you left people's names attached to their quotes you wouldn't confuse us with each other. At no point did I say I expected you to do anything to become free of it. That was Stas Bush. Do try to keep up. Would it help if I typed more slowly for you?

Although you did get my point that no, you CAN'T be entirely free of society. You are product of society, whether you like that or not.

No coercion, just massive amounts of propaganda. Propaganda is an attempt at verbal coercion,

It's not coercion- it's persuasion. People can choose to ignore it or to listen and decide not to do it.

Bullshit. Unremitting propaganda 24/7 is coercive.

And what creates enjoyment isn't always about efficiency. Much of what compromises what people do in their free time has zero to do with efficiency.

Yes, but material living standard is a significant part of enjoyment. You also have not demonstrated how people enjoy tribal communism.

First of all, while material culture and living standards affects enjoyment it does not determine enjoyment. There are people who are content with lesser material standards, there are even people who have given away most of their money in pursuit of something they desire more than wealth.

And secondly, as I have pointed out, tribal property structures are far different than the national communism/socialism arising out of Marx. Nor are all tribes “communist” in the sense you mean it. There were settled Native groups that had frank ownership of land and possessions, such as the Iroquois - although with them landownership was inherited via one's mother, land/farming rights were not something that could normally be sold, and men simply did not own land, only the women did. You do realize that Native Americans were a hugely diverse collection of communities?

As for “enjoying” it – these days, Natives are free to either stay in their tribe OR to assimilate into the surrounding culture. Many choose to stay with the tribe. In other cases, those raised in the surrounding society choose the tribe, as many tribes have means of demonstrating sufficient relatedness so as to join the Native group.

Beyond that, though, the structure of such tribal societies leads to a sort of collective insurance – true, in good times the individual does not benefit as much as under other systems, but during times of hardship the individual can receive aid from others. This is a bargain so many people are willing to strike that societies keep reinventing such mechanisms over and over – among us non-tribals we call it “insurance” or a “social safety net”.

Such mechanisms are unjust unless agreed to- that's been part of my entire point.

In other words, you're a selfish brat willing to take everything you need from infancy, then run off into the woods with no consideration for others. OK, no one here is surprised at that, I'm sure. But I'm sure as hell am not going to praise you for it either. In fact, I regard you as an immoral object of contempt. I'm perfectly willing to let you leave the city walls (so to speak) and then lock the door behind you with a 'good riddance”. If you are not willing to pay for what you receive from society then you are in no way deserving of any of it, either. I do hope you have sufficient wealth and health to care for yourself the rest of your life on your own, as under your system no one will bail your ass out if you get hurt or ill or caught in unfortunate circumstances.

Once again, you demonstrate you are a fucking ignorant twat.

The Cherokee nation has a constitution, which has been amended several times. The earliest one written down was in 1827 – it might have been earlier except they didn't have a writing system until the 1820's. The Lakota (Sioux) have a separate constitution for each of their five reservations. And so on. Next time at least check Wikipedia before you open your mouth and demonstrate what a fool you are.

The Six Nations (Iroquois) don't, as far as I know, have a written constitution but were voting on matters and electing tribal officials long before the Europeans showed up, and for most matters required not merely a majority but a supermajority of 75% to pass an initiative. Women had voting rights and veto powers equal to the men. Anyone who didn't like their system was free to leave, of course.

They aren't the only Native American groups, and unless they formally institute tribal communism they don't have enough spelled out.

If you think I'm going to sit here and delineate the thousands of governmental structures of the remaining Native groups in the world you are out of your fucking mind. You said it didn't count unless they had a constitution they could vote on. I have given you not ONE but SEVERAL counter-examples so concede the fucking point you piece of shit.

And saying “unless they formally institute tribal communism they don't have enough spelled out” - what the fuck are you smoking? WHERE did anyone – other than your twisted mind – get the notion that tribal communism was somehow mandatory? You're moving the goalposts again. Stop doing that, shithead.

Professional (as opposed to quasi-amateurs such as myself) historians tend to specialise, and I have decided to go and do likewise- given my conservative upbringing I'd already learned a lot of history as taught in ideologically conservative schools, so I went from there.

Try learning something from people you disagree with instead of just adhering to those who already share your viewpoint. That is one of the pitfalls of self-education, the tendency to seek confirmation of one's current viewpoint instead of challenging oneself.

What about the people who came along later, who had no part in the theft? How do we determine which land was legitimately purchased and which wasn't?

Evidence, and documentation.

And if the evidence is scanty and the documentation destroyed by the capricious acts of time...?

How is it justified to reduce the descendants of people to poverty when those descendants themselves did nothing wrong?

The world does not owe them a living.

Nor is the world entitled to rob them blind, either.

What do you do about people who aren't wholly one ethnic group or another?

Since the sad fact of the matter is that the tribes were collectivelly owned, do what the ancient tribesmen would have wanted- kick them out.

You are so fucking ignorant it's amazing – WHERE did you get the notion that the “ancient tribesmen” would have simply kicked people out? I'm back to the Cherokee again – I'm a little more familiar with them than others because quite a few of my in-laws are Cherokee – where if a white man married an Native woman he'd be considered a member of the group but if a Native man married a white woman he was expected to leave and live with his wife, and no children by a non-Cherokee woman would be considered Cherokee. Any slaves were also seen as members of the group, and indeed after the Civil War the former Cherokee slaves were given Cherokee citizenship regardless of blood relations.

That's just one group. Native Americans exhibited every form of marriage and citizenship known anywhere else. In some, membership passed through the mother, some through the father, some were open to outsiders joining the group, some irrevocably hostile to immigrants. Nice going trying to hammer them into one homogeneous mess. Do you make it a habit to stereotype other ethnic groups?

And what makes you think the rest of the world could absorb 300 million refugees from your scheme? What makes you think any welfare system could absorb that number of people? And how the hell are you going to move that many people out of North America? (Never mind Central and South America, where the same would apply. You're really talking about a billion people being moved to other continents)

The free market would provide- most of them would end up severely impoverished, but places like Belarus can always use skilled labour. The Western World, whether due to racism or preferring those with Western culture, would also be more inclined to accept them.

Bullshit. The “free market” is not capable of pulling this off. Just the sheer logistics of transporting that many people from one continent to another is daunting, and it strains credulity that it could be done at all. Who the fuck do you think will PAY for those transportation costs? I don't know what the carrying capacity of every ship and airplane in the world would be, but even assuming you used all of them for that purpose and nothing else (already an insane proposition) it would take an enormous amount of fuel and time to do this. It is not possible.

This by the way, doesn't even begin to touch on Native reparations to African American descendants of slaves, as many Natives were slaveholders prior to the Civil war. At one time, the largest plantation with the greatest number of slaves in Georgia was owned by a Native family who were, by the way, fucking wealthy by anyone's standards. Except of course that their wealth was confiscated by whites so how the hell are the descendants of that family supposed to pay reparations to the descendants of their black slaves?

There is so much wrong from a merely practical standpoint with your scheme.

As I said, I ignore pragmatics. The natives can pay some of their new reparation money to the blacks if they can afford it- otherwise, it's metaphorical blood out of a stone.

Nice – the black people get shit on again. Way to go, asshat.

I can't wait to see how you handle the notion that there were black slaveholders in North America, some of them former slaves themselves. Holy shit, this gets tangled, which is why at some point you have to pull the plug on this mess lest we all wind up circling the drain as everything in the world is pissed away into endless reparations.

We frown on moving goalposts here.

How did I move goalposts?

Saying something, being contradicted, then saying “oh, that's not really what I meant”. I noted an example previously.

There is this thing called a “library” I suggest you look into as obviously the public education you were subjected to (assuming you had some education – you are, after all, able to type in English) clearly didn't take well. If navigating to the library is too difficult for you (perhaps you never learned that songline) there are these things called the “internet” and a “search engine” which will enable you to self-educate. Feel free to take advantage of them.

Frankly, I'd love to see you dropped into a state of “pure freedom” such as you envision. Unless you're seven feet tall with the muscles of a gorilla you'd soon learn the disadvantages of such a state for the average human being.

1- You have no reason to suspect the rest of my subjects were so poorly taught.

You have already demonstrated an appalling ignorance in several areas of knowledge, therefore, I will assume you are ignorant until proven otherwise. Or until proven stupid.

[K. A. Pital]

Your new argument seems to be calling on the idea of an implicit principle that suffering is always bad- can you establish that principle, or is it an axiom?

Present suffering can be weighed against future suffering in utilitarianism (and obviously by common logic), if that's where you're heading. However, if future suffering does not tend to decrease, present suffering has no justification at all. Unless you believe suffering can be good in principle, in and of itself.

Suffering itself is always bad, I presume you understand as much - that is the psychological norm in society. Sado-masochists are a minority with a psychical deviation.

If society does not have rights, how can people have responsibilities to it?

Easy. A body corporate or a person may have no rights, but people can still have responsibilities to it (or him or her). The existence of rights is not necessary for responsibilities to exist.

[Serafina]

Can you actually demonstrate this claim?

In any meaningfull sense of the word, it is. Absolute freedom doesn't exist - such a definition would include "absence of necessity", which is obvioulsy not possible (you still have to eat, breathe etc. at the very least). It's also never possible to to whatever you want, since you are obviously not omnipotent - and you would most likely violate other peoples rights.

So i have put up an actual, meaningful, applicable definition - a necessity in any discussion. You haven't done anything resembling that. Do so if you want to appeal to freedom.

I am NOT advocating the obliteration of society- I am advocating that those who DO NOT WANT to be a part of society have the choice, and societies will either giving people explicit contracts to live in their national borders (with an alternative avaliable for those who refuse to have any responsibilities to society) or let people act with obligations (or different governments taking different options, of course). The exceptions would be when it comes to restricting other people's freedom (stems from having such a right in the first place). Punishments for stealing are a little ethically dubious, but I would definitly support the government protecting property under the later models.

Yes, you are. Sure, you are not saying "obliterate society", but what you are advocating (which is quite vague anyway) would lead to just that.
Ultimately, anything resembling your ideas would lead into anarchy. If i can choose to opt out of the rules of society any time i want (or never enter in the first place), then there ARE no rules. You even recognize that and argue that some rules are always enforced (such as those against theft - what against murder, rape, stalking, loud music, dumping hazardous waste etc.?) - but you are obviously not thinking rationally here, otherwise you would recognize that this exactly WHY we have a social contract.
So yes - you are arguing for the destruction of society itself, because a society without rules can not possibly function. Pretty much summed up wih this sentence:

I am advocating the abolition of RESPONSIBILITIES TO SOCIETY, rather than society itself.

1- I don't think the views I'm arguing for fall into any formal system (as far as I know). I'd give them a formal name that best fits them, but I'm not sure what a good one would be.

I don't give a damn whether they fall into a formal system. You have been challenged to present them, which you can do regardless of whether they are part of such a system or not. You have not done so, and instead just dodged my point. Therefore, you still have no argument to present, much less advance.

2- The core axioms of such a system are protecting human rights- life, liberty, and property (negative rights, not positive rights- it is morally wrong to take them away, but if somebody loses them by their own foolishness or bad luck that's their problem).

Oh, so you tried to define them - and failed utterly. Because this is so vague that it can literary mean anything. Not to mention that our society is doing exactly that job already, and that you want to replace this system of protection with....i don't know, you never said.

3- Any argument for the superiority of one moral system over another would assume an axiom about what is "objectively" good (or assumed good for some reason). Because of this, the result is an infinite regress of values.

Wrong. We always see how thins work out in reality (something which you are evidently ignoring). We can measure many of these results objectively. We can measure if people are better fed, if they have better medical care, if they live longer, if they have to work more or less to get all that, the crime rates they are subjected to and so on. Even happiness is measureable objectively to a good degree.
Those are universal (unless you want to get obtuse) ways of measuring the success of any moral system. The system i am advocating get's good results on that.


Again:
Present the moral system you are advocating - in detail.
Present your alternative to the social contract, and contemplate it's impacts and if it could actually be implemented.
Otherwise, you have no argument whatsoever.

[D.Turtle]

Now that you've clarified your position (and contradicted your earlier argument, since if I can't be free from society I can't be expected to do anything to become free of it), I'll point out that you seem to have one fundemental axiom- you implicitly claim that people must repay to society indirect benefits gained from society, even if they did not ask for them.

Obviously I have benefited from society- I was only suggesting the possibility of going out to sea due to illustrating (I thought) where your argument led. But I didn't ask for them, and nobody demanded services in return in exchange for them- because of this, I owe society nothing.

In my last post I posted this hypothetical scenario:

Or hey, an easier example: If somebody gave you a million Dollars, and you use this to educate yourself, buy a house, and live a very comfortable life. A few years later, you learn that the million Dollars were stolen from some other people, forcing them into homelessness and begging in the streets.

Would you feel morally obliged to help those people who the million Dollars were stolen from?

You stated that:

Only to the value of a million dollars. If I'd given something to the person in exchange for the million, I'd want (although in the modern world would not realistically get) compensation and would have the moral right to it.

Why do you feel morally obliged to return unasked goods that had no requirements attached to them when they come from a person, but do not feel the same moral obligation to society?

[mr friendly guy]

Clearly an appeal to the norm. Because it is an invalid argument, you have no argument so I can ignore it just like I can the possibility of unicorns.

1. You demonstrate you can't see how lending money to a government to help fight a war is beneficial? But apparently you think that I am saying its good because it's the norm.

2. In case you missed it the first time, I stated why it was beneficial. You remember the part where I pointed out how a country borrowing money can improve the standard of living of people. Oh that's right, its the part you conveniently failed to read.

3. Even if it was an appeal to the norm, its irrelevant. An argument stands and falls on its own merits regardless of whether its the norm or not. Hence saying its not the norm cannot dismiss it. You totally ignored this part in your looong reply in a bid to accuse me of appealing to the norm.

So where do you live? Are you stateless? Do you live a region where the government lacks control, for example regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan? But I bet you you live in either a first world or second world nation which actually has a government.

True but irrelevant.

In other words, you can talk the talk but cannot walk the walk. Thanks for playing.

As I said above, any attempt to prove the superiority of one moral system over another leads to an infinite regress of value claims.

1. So why are you trying to argue your moral system if its pointless because of such and such?
2. Even if we accept your claim, a moral system can still prove superior to another if one of them is self contradictory. I don't think I need to point out AGAIN your blatant inconsistency in applying your moral system in regards to Australian Aborigines?
3. Despite your handwaving, you are in effect using broadly the same principles as others, that by outcome. Despite your claim that pragmatism doesn't come into it. Since we are using the same yard stick, they can be compared.

You obviously missed the part where I explained why. Your definition of the words are not the usual context, ie they are too broad, hence its an example of equivocation. Failure to read an opponent's arguments doesn't make you look better.

the condition of being free; the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints

A dictionary definition I checked up. Seems to fit my use fairly well.

Oh good, you know how to use a dictionary. Now look up equivocation.

Why should they have such a right, assuming there is an even slightly better outcome in which they don't?

Why should we assume there is an even better outcome in which they don't, especially when you state pragmatist measures are irrelevant?

Aboriginals believed in black magic. In practice, the British did not.

Get the fuck out. Black magic? What century did your wade out from? Do you even know what songlines are?

Dude, this is the guy who still thinks Britain is ruling Australia in the 1960s because he uses "British" interchangeably with "Australian authorities".
He is also the guy who has the magical ability to tell what ethnic group you are by starring at you through the computer screen.
He is so full of shit, a surgeon needs to manually disimpact him.

[madd0ct0r]

I'm going to try and avoid dog-piling, but I think the concept of 'absolute freedom' vs 'real freedom' are a necessary argument here.

the writing of Philip Van Parijs is meant to be good on the subject, but paraphrased,

The freedom to starve is no freedom at all. For freedom to truly mean something, people must be supplied with their basic needs, so they are not constrained by necessity.

So this works in a Sci-fi uber society such as the Culture or pre-fall Eldar. Basically, you can do almost anything you want and robots take care of the janitor work.

In real life, this equates to the government giving people a basic income level, enough for people to go off and become poets (for example). The level at which this income should be set is up for debate of course (as it effectively defines the level of 'real freedom'.)
The only place in the world with this? Alaska, home of sarah palin.

For the ULTIMATE Libertarians in the audience, the basic income does require things like a goverment, taxes ect to work. So basically you sacrifice worthless 'absolute freedom' for a technically more limited, but actually less so 'real freedom.'

[Carinthium]

Funny, I though I saw people in this very thread agree to the concept of the social contract. You do realize that not every shares your stupid viewpoint, yes?

Of course not everybody shares my viewpoint- what I'm pointing out is that the sum total of people who have heard social contract theory and disagree with it are numerous enough to cast doubt on the theory.

Get up off your fat, lazy ass and work as a crewman for passage. Is it that hard a concept? You want something then you trade something you have – your money, your labor, your asshole for the captain of a ship to ass-fuck – for something you want. Like passage to a lawless territory. I would have thought a free-market Randroid such as yourself would understand how that works.

I'll admit I didn't think of that, although the question still remains of if the captain would agree to a deal for labor. (I don't have the money, and statisically most captains would be male hetrosexuals)

Nope, that is NOT my point at all, once again you are trying to hammer inconvenient items into your preconceived world view. What I am saying is that Person B can't compensate Person A then person A is shit out of luck. That's how it works in the real world. I said nothing about taking money from anyone else, YOU pulled that out of your ass-of-holding which is so full of knee jerk assumptions that it's a wonder there's room for shit in your colon.

It seems I misinterpreted your argument- I'm sorry, I assumed you would at least be consistent.

To refute your argument, I'll point out that "blood out of a stone" scenarios are usually considered acceptable with most civil law matters, so why not with matters for which you advocate international reparations?

You fucking retard – you don't starve to death in “2-3 days”. You are SUCH a moron. Do you have ANY actual knowledge of the real world?

They'd die of thirst in 2-3 days.

You know, if you left people's names attached to their quotes you wouldn't confuse us with each other. At no point did I say I expected you to do anything to become free of it. That was Stas Bush. Do try to keep up. Would it help if I typed more slowly for you?

Although you did get my point that no, you CAN'T be entirely free of society. You are product of society, whether you like that or not.

There's a good case for that, but it's irrelevant to the argument.

Bullshit. Unremitting propaganda 24/7 is coercive.

1- This wouldn't be actually 24/7- for those tribes still living a somewhat tribal lifestyle, it would involve sending diplomats whenever my government (since we're assuming very unrealistically that I'd be calling the shots on this one, so "my government" fits fairly well) saw an opportunity to persuade them.

2- 24/7 propaganda is not actually coercive. To quote wikipedia:
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. ...

First of all, while material culture and living standards affects enjoyment it does not determine enjoyment. There are people who are content with lesser material standards, there are even people who have given away most of their money in pursuit of something they desire more than wealth.

My argument is that the rise in material living standards is enough for most people to make it worth it.

And secondly, as I have pointed out, tribal property structures are far different than the national communism/socialism arising out of Marx. Nor are all tribes “communist” in the sense you mean it. There were settled Native groups that had frank ownership of land and possessions, such as the Iroquois - although with them landownership was inherited via one's mother, land/farming rights were not something that could normally be sold, and men simply did not own land, only the women did. You do realize that Native Americans were a hugely diverse collection of communities?

Of course they were diverse, but that doesn't mean SOME generalisations apply (a continent isn't large enough for there to be no noticable similarities). I may have been a little too broad in doing so, though.

As for “enjoying” it – these days, Natives are free to either stay in their tribe OR to assimilate into the surrounding culture. Many choose to stay with the tribe. In other cases, those raised in the surrounding society choose the tribe, as many tribes have means of demonstrating sufficient relatedness so as to join the Native group.

The problem is too great a risk of social pressure to stay in the tribe.

In other words, you're a selfish brat willing to take everything you need from infancy, then run off into the woods with no consideration for others. OK, no one here is surprised at that, I'm sure. But I'm sure as hell am not going to praise you for it either. In fact, I regard you as an immoral object of contempt. I'm perfectly willing to let you leave the city walls (so to speak) and then lock the door behind you with a 'good riddance”. If you are not willing to pay for what you receive from society then you are in no way deserving of any of it, either. I do hope you have sufficient wealth and health to care for yourself the rest of your life on your own, as under your system no one will bail your ass out if you get hurt or ill or caught in unfortunate circumstances.

My parents, the ACTUAL people who I owe for being raised, wouldn't mind such a course of action. As I've been arguing the whole time, since there was no contract I don't owe an abstract for indirect benefits.

If you think I'm going to sit here and delineate the thousands of governmental structures of the remaining Native groups in the world you are out of your fucking mind. You said it didn't count unless they had a constitution they could vote on. I have given you not ONE but SEVERAL counter-examples so concede the fucking point you piece of shit.

And saying “unless they formally institute tribal communism they don't have enough spelled out” - what the fuck are you smoking? WHERE did anyone – other than your twisted mind – get the notion that tribal communism was somehow mandatory? You're moving the goalposts again. Stop doing that, shithead.

1- Just because some groups have a Constitution doesn't mean all do. My points still apply to the ones that don't.
2- I said I'd advocate a formal constitution- I didn't explain well enough the details I'd be advocating. (I admit I made a mistake in not realising the Cherokee still did, though. I assumed they'd have abandoned it when it didn't persuade the U.S to stop taking their land)
3- Admittedly I'm probably extrapolating a bit too much from what little I know of Aboriginal and Stone Age tribes.
4- How do you justify the "piece of shit" claim?

Try learning something from people you disagree with instead of just adhering to those who already share your viewpoint. That is one of the pitfalls of self-education, the tendency to seek confirmation of one's current viewpoint instead of challenging oneself.

That's one of the reasons I'm on stardestroyer.net- I don't think you'd dispute that I've run into a lot of people who disagree with me.

And if the evidence is scanty and the documentation destroyed by the capricious acts of time...?

Then reparations amongst individuals go as far as the evidence will allow, and it is established at law that when new evidence is discovered they go further.

Nor is the world entitled to rob them blind, either.

The possessions they occupy are, in effect, not their own- they've profited from immoral acts, and while it isn't their fault they need to return the stolen goods. (Or, when the stolen goods are passed on, compensation for them)

Plenty of people in the world are in much worse conditions (and born into much worse conditions) and the world doesn't mind, but why here?

You are so fucking ignorant it's amazing – WHERE did you get the notion that the “ancient tribesmen” would have simply kicked people out? I'm back to the Cherokee again – I'm a little more familiar with them than others because quite a few of my in-laws are Cherokee – where if a white man married an Native woman he'd be considered a member of the group but if a Native man married a white woman he was expected to leave and live with his wife, and no children by a non-Cherokee woman would be considered Cherokee. Any slaves were also seen as members of the group, and indeed after the Civil War the former Cherokee slaves were given Cherokee citizenship regardless of blood relations.

That's just one group. Native Americans exhibited every form of marriage and citizenship known anywhere else. In some, membership passed through the mother, some through the father, some were open to outsiders joining the group, some irrevocably hostile to immigrants. Nice going trying to hammer them into one homogeneous mess. Do you make it a habit to stereotype other ethnic groups?

I assumed they would have hated the whites for stealing their land, and would want a return to the good old days. Admittedly, for some tribes I was probably wrong.

Bullshit. The “free market” is not capable of pulling this off. Just the sheer logistics of transporting that many people from one continent to another is daunting, and it strains credulity that it could be done at all. Who the fuck do you think will PAY for those transportation costs? I don't know what the carrying capacity of every ship and airplane in the world would be, but even assuming you used all of them for that purpose and nothing else (already an insane proposition) it would take an enormous amount of fuel and time to do this. It is not possible.

The vast majority wouldn't be transported to another country at first- prices would skyrocket for ships, so they wouldn't be able to afford it. As a result, large numbers would end up in Canada and Mexico. Eventually (over a period of maybe 1-2 years) if there was enough desire to move more and more would be able to do so over time.

Nice – the black people get shit on again. Way to go, asshat.

If you have to call it that, a lot of people get "shit on"- not just the blacks.

I can't wait to see how you handle the notion that there were black slaveholders in North America, some of them former slaves themselves. Holy shit, this gets tangled, which is why at some point you have to pull the plug on this mess lest we all wind up circling the drain as everything in the world is pissed away into endless reparations.

No you don't- the economic problems will be severe, but if it is done one part of the world at a time it won't destroy the economy. The benefits are that everybody in the world will be able to say confidently that they aren't profiting from immoral actions, and that pragmatic concessions will be avoided.

Saying something, being contradicted, then saying “oh, that's not really what I meant”. I noted an example previously.

I'm only 18 years old, and have Aspergers Syndrome. Sometimes I'm not good at clarifying myself.

You have already demonstrated an appalling ignorance in several areas of knowledge, therefore, I will assume you are ignorant until proven otherwise. Or until proven stupid.

Why don't you give some actual examples?

Present suffering can be weighed against future suffering in utilitarianism (and obviously by common logic), if that's where you're heading. However, if future suffering does not tend to decrease, present suffering has no justification at all. Unless you believe suffering can be good in principle, in and of itself.

Suffering itself is always bad, I presume you understand as much - that is the psychological norm in society. Sado-masochists are a minority with a psychical deviation.

It seems I need to clarify my position further- I suppose this is a mild version of what a real culture clash feels like.

As I have raised before on this site (but a while ago, so I don't expect you to remember that), there is a legitimate question of why be moral at all. Since (assuming we don't resort to fictions such as God or that it's in one's own best interests) there is no reason, any moral system is inherently arbitary.

Because there is no justification for being moral in the first place, any moral values are arbitrary axioms- just because they fit human nature doesn't mean they are inherently Good or Evil. (possibly being an ex-Christian helps me to know better then to mistake something for such when it isn't)

Easy. A body corporate or a person may have no rights, but people can still have responsibilities to it (or him or her). The existence of rights is not necessary for responsibilities to exist.

Usually, a responsibility to a person implies a right. If a worker has a responsibility to go to work, it implies the company has a right to their labor. If a parent has a responsibility to raise a child, it implies the child has a right to be raised.

In any meaningfull sense of the word, it is. Absolute freedom doesn't exist - such a definition would include "absence of necessity", which is obvioulsy not possible (you still have to eat, breathe etc. at the very least). It's also never possible to to whatever you want, since you are obviously not omnipotent - and you would most likely violate other peoples rights.

That's why one in the practical world one talks about maximising freedom- this makes redefinition unnecessary.

Yes, you are. Sure, you are not saying "obliterate society", but what you are advocating (which is quite vague anyway) would lead to just that.
Ultimately, anything resembling your ideas would lead into anarchy. If i can choose to opt out of the rules of society any time i want (or never enter in the first place), then there ARE no rules. You even recognize that and argue that some rules are always enforced (such as those against theft - what against murder, rape, stalking, loud music, dumping hazardous waste etc.?) - but you are obviously not thinking rationally here, otherwise you would recognize that this exactly WHY we have a social contract.

I think this is a good point to explain a few more details of my ideal system.

Children would be in just about the same situation they're in at the moment until they reach adulthood, when they would be given a choice to formally become a citizen or not. This is a large part of society 'taken care of'.

Assuming an adult chooses to become a citizen, they are like a current citizen unless they opt of it.

The alternative is to become a non-citizen. Non-citizens don't pay taxes and couldn't be conscripted, but have far less rights- society could choose of course, but in exchange for having no responsibilities they would face having no healthcare, no government support, police only helping them or catching offenders against them if it is incidental to helping citizens or they have nothing else to do, and so on. Society could also vote to expel it's non-citizens if it wanted to (although as a matter of course it would allow them to sell their land first).

Non-citizens would have severe crime problems, but they could always form militia to defend themselves (as both sides would be banned the same weapons, it would be an even fight). The ocassional enforcement would create a degree of deterrent for crooks, and neighbourhoods with citizens in them would have to be policed for their benefit (thus ensuring non-citizens are safe as an incidental matter).

Oh, so you tried to define them - and failed utterly. Because this is so vague that it can literary mean anything. Not to mention that our society is doing exactly that job already, and that you want to replace this system of protection with....i don't know, you never said.

A right to life is fairly clear- human beings have a right to be alive, and while they will die eventually society should not get in the way of their survival.

I've already explained what I mean by freedom- that is effectively what I mean by liberty. I was using the term to point out it's similarity to conservative ideology. Society does not defend freedom, as is fairly obvious.

Wrong. We always see how thins work out in reality (something which you are evidently ignoring). We can measure many of these results objectively. We can measure if people are better fed, if they have better medical care, if they live longer, if they have to work more or less to get all that, the crime rates they are subjected to and so on. Even happiness is measureable objectively to a good degree.
Those are universal (unless you want to get obtuse) ways of measuring the success of any moral system. The system i am advocating get's good results on that.

I've already refuted this earlier- these things are not "objective" goods- you have provided no argument for them being so other than argument ad populorum.

Again:
Present the moral system you are advocating - in detail.
Present your alternative to the social contract, and contemplate it's impacts and if it could actually be implemented.

I've presented my alternative to the social contract. Now I'll explain my moral system.

My core axioms are the defence of life, liberty, and property. These are human rights, and therefore it is immoral to violate them.

Liberty is prioritised above Life when the risk or loss is due to a person's own choices (e.g.- extreme stupidity), but below it when it is due to another persons (e.g.- a murderer).

Property is prioritised above Life when it is somebody's own fault they are a threat to Property (so an intruder can shoot somebody trying to steal their property), but otherwise below (in a natural disaster, saving life comes above property).

A person's Property rights are almost always prioritised over Liberty.

It is immoral to sacrifice one person's Life, Liberty, or Property for another's without their consent.

Why do you feel morally obliged to return unasked goods that had no requirements attached to them when they come from a person, but do not feel the same moral obligation to society?

Because the real owner of the goods did not consent to their transfer- therefore there was no transaction. If the actual owner gave me the goods and then demanded a favor for it later, I would use the same logic as with obligations to society.

1. You demonstrate you can't see how lending money to a government to help fight a war is beneficial? But apparently you think that I am saying its good because it's the norm.

Now that you've clarified your point, I'll point out that governments tend to fight more unjust wars then just ones. Things such as the WikiLeaks scandal show that realpolitik prevails over ideology practially all the time.

3. Even if it was an appeal to the norm, its irrelevant. An argument stands and falls on its own merits regardless of whether its the norm or not. Hence saying its not the norm cannot dismiss it. You totally ignored this part in your looong reply in a bid to accuse me of appealing to the norm.

I didn't see anything other than an appeal to the norm. Arguing against this many people makes it hard to give all the arguments the proper attention.

In other words, you can talk the talk but cannot walk the walk. Thanks for playing.

1- I have already pointed out that showing a person's hypocrisy does not invalidate their argument- a hypocrite can support any argument.
2- I've only recently turned 18- until then, I didn't have the liberty to move.

1. So why are you trying to argue your moral system if its pointless because of such and such?

I thought we shared more axioms then we in fact do share- because of this, I thought our systems were close enough for a debate.

2. Even if we accept your claim, a moral system can still prove superior to another if one of them is self contradictory. I don't think I need to point out AGAIN your blatant inconsistency in applying your moral system in regards to Australian Aborigines?

In my moral system, children don't have rights.

Oh good, you know how to use a dictionary. Now look up equivocation.

Why is it equivocation?

Why should we assume there is an even better outcome in which they don't, especially when you state pragmatist measures are irrelevant?

I'm arguing that there is a better outcome a statistically significant percentage of the time (excluding situations where it's so obvious the child would be taken away as it is)- because of this, children should be taken away more often.

Dude, this is the guy who still thinks Britain is ruling Australia in the 1960s because he uses "British" interchangeably with "Australian authorities".
He is also the guy who has the magical ability to tell what ethnic group you are by starring at you through the computer screen.
He is so full of shit, a surgeon needs to manually disimpact him.

1- Statistically, most people in the Western World are white- even more so if you only count those who can afford Internet acess. Therefore, the theoretical probability you were white was high.
2- Technically, I left myself room in case of such a slip-up by saying "similiar to you". Most Leftist cause leaders tend to be white due most of the population being white, therefore it was probably a white who indoctrinated them.

The freedom to starve is no freedom at all. For freedom to truly mean something, people must be supplied with their basic needs, so they are not constrained by necessity.

1- You're asserting something without evidence. Are you going to admit this is a conflicting axiom that contradicts the dictionary or do you have an argument?
2- It is morally wrong to violate somebody else's freedom in an attempt to give it to others. Most adults can look after themselves, and because of this the pragmatic consequences (which SDers seem to care about, with the exception of Stash Bush) are small.

In real life, this equates to the government giving people a basic income level, enough for people to go off and become poets (for example). The level at which this income should be set is up for debate of course (as it effectively defines the level of 'real freedom'.)
The only place in the world with this? Alaska, home of sarah palin.

For the ULTIMATE Libertarians in the audience, the basic income does require things like a goverment, taxes ect to work. So basically you sacrifice worthless 'absolute freedom' for a technically more limited, but actually less so 'real freedom.'

Assuming you care about pragmatic consequences, I will point out that this will create a massive disincentive to work and significant inflation (poor people tend to spend more). It is likely most people will stop working given such a policy.

In addition, I'll point out a flaw in what I assume is your moral philosophy- assuming a person is genuinely incapable of contributing to society, they are a freeloader. Aren't you robbing from society to keep them alive?

[mr friendly guy]

Now that you've clarified your point, I'll point out that governments tend to fight more unjust wars then just ones. Things such as the WikiLeaks scandal show that realpolitik prevails over ideology practially all the time.

Geez, I am pretty I gave the example of the UK only just paying off its WWII debt. It should be obvious to anyone with half a brain that wars require money, hence it was beneficial to the British to borrow money, and beneficial to the lenders to lend them money in the form of interest payments. If debt is cancelled with change in governments or with the newer generation because "they weren't around at the time of WWII", then lenders would be incline to lend less money, which is a worse outcome for the British.

I also used the example of Americans using money borrowed from Asia to increase their standard of living, with the same pitfalls as above. I doubt someone having the extra cash to buy that Sony Playstation or whatever they wanted right now can be counted as unjust. Even under your code to maximise freedom its moral in the sense that more money = more options = more freedom. And even if their freedom is slightly constrained when they pay it off, it still gives them the flexibility of buying that Playstation now or later, and more freedom = good, AM I RITE?

I didn't see anything other than an appeal to the norm. Arguing against this many people makes it hard to give all the arguments the proper attention.

I will let this slide for now, but with my British WWII debt example it seemed obvious to me what the benefits were to borrowing money to fight a war that I didn't see the need to elaborate on it, only to talk about paying it back.

1- I have already pointed out that showing a person's hypocrisy does not invalidate their argument- a hypocrite can support any argument.

1. I am pretty sure I already pointed out the difference between an ad hominem tu quoque (which is what you are saying we accuse you of) and a self contradictory argument (which is what you did). Although I must confess, I find that you admitting you are a hypocrite is an improvement from before when you said "even if I were a hypocrite."

2. If someone offered me an awesome system of making $$$$ but didn't use it themselves, I would have to wonder if they are fraudulent and a con artist. If someone on a message board offers an awesome way to live their lives but didn't live it themselves, I start wondering whether they are just trolling, or realise on some level their system is unworkable so they don't try it, ie are they behaving like the message board equivalent of a con artist.

3. I should also point out how you conclude your moral system is better? Do you have evidence that people in areas where the government is weak (Pakistan border areas)/ no government (Antarctica) have better lives than those that live in countries with stable government? At least if you lived in one of those areas you could at least claim experience, even if it is anecdotal evidence.

2- I've only recently turned 18- until then, I didn't have the liberty to move.

So when can we expect you to move to one of these weak / non existent government areas then?

I thought we shared more axioms then we in fact do share- because of this, I thought our systems were close enough for a debate.

We do however share the most important aspect. Outcome measures.

2. Even if we accept your claim, a moral system can still prove superior to another if one of them is self contradictory. I don't think I need to point out AGAIN your blatant inconsistency in applying your moral system in regards to Australian Aborigines?

In my moral system, children don't have rights.

1. Sorry, did you just say children don't have rights? WTF are you about moron? By that logic a paedophile can screw with a child because they don't have the rights of life, liberty etc which you espouse for adults. You are a fucking immoral cunt and the more you say just reveals your vast stupidity.

2. In your moral system, you said nations don't have rights either, people do. Yet you support the government running roughshod over the people (or at least a group of people). Thus your system has a contradiction.

Why is it equivocation?

Since you apparently know how to use a dictionary, why don't you look it up? I am tired to explaining to you twice already why it is so.

I'm arguing that there is a better outcome a statistically significant percentage of the time (excluding situations where it's so obvious the child would be taken away as it is)- because of this, children should be taken away more often.

Lets say it again. You reject pragmatic measures other than "maximise freedom" and the child's welfare is a pragmatic measure which doesn't increase freedom. Again a contradiction in your immoral system.

Dude, this is the guy who still thinks Britain is ruling Australia in the 1960s because he uses "British" interchangeably with "Australian authorities".
He is also the guy who has the magical ability to tell what ethnic group you are by starring at you through the computer screen.
He is so full of shit, a surgeon needs to manually disimpact him.

1- Statistically, most people in the Western World are white- even more so if you only count those who can afford Internet acess. Therefore, the theoretical probability you were white was high.
2- Technically, I left myself room in case of such a slip-up by saying "similiar to you". Most Leftist cause leaders tend to be white due most of the population being white, therefore it was probably a white who indoctrinated them.

这个人Carinthium 说 多 一点, 我们 可以看他変笨一点.

In case you are wondering, two other people you are debating with can read what I just typed. How do I know? Why I have the magical ability to tell what language someone can speak / read just by starring across the computer screen.

[Thanas]

As Carinthium rejects the social contract, I would like for him to point out how and why he finds the following things offensive and/or wrong:

I SUPPOSE men to have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state. That primitive condition can then subsist no longer; and the human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence.

But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring into play by means of a single motive power, and cause to act in concert.

This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms:

"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one — the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.

Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.

Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms:

"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."

At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons formerly took the name of city,4 and now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called by its members State when passive. Sovereign when active, and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision.

THIS formula shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual undertaking between the public and the individuals, and that each individual, in making a contract, as we may say, with himself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign he is bound to the individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign. But the maxim of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to himself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between incurring an obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole of which you form a part.

Attention must further be called to the fact that public deliberation, while competent to bind all the subjects to the Sovereign, because of the two different capacities in which each of them may be regarded, cannot, for the opposite reason, bind the Sovereign to itself; and that it is consequently against the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot infringe. Being able to regard itself in only one capacity, it is in the position of an individual who makes a contract with himself; and this makes it clear that there neither is nor can be any kind of fundamental law binding on the body of the people — not even the social contract itself. This does not mean that the body politic cannot enter into undertakings with others, provided the contract is not infringed by them; for in relation to what is external to it, it becomes a simple being, an individual.

But the body politic or the Sovereign, drawing its being wholly from the sanctity of the contract, can never bind itself, even to an outsider, to do anything derogatory to the original act, for instance, to alienate any part of itself, or to submit to another Sovereign. Violation of the act by which it exists would be self-annihilation; and that which is itself nothing can create nothing.

As soon as this multitude is so united in one body, it is impossible to offend against one of the members without attacking the body, and still more to offend against the body without the members resenting it. Duty and interest therefore equally oblige the two contracting parties to give each other help; and the same men should seek to combine, in their double capacity, all the advantages dependent upon that capacity.

Again, the Sovereign, being formed wholly of the individuals who compose it, neither has nor can have any interest contrary to theirs; and consequently the sovereign power need give no guarantee to its subjects, because it is impossible for the body to wish to hurt all its members. We shall also see later on that it cannot hurt any in particular. The Sovereign, merely by virtue of what it is, is always what it should be.

This, however, is not the case with the relation of the subjects to the Sovereign, which, despite the common interest, would have no security that they would fulfil their undertakings, unless it found means to assure itself of their fidelity.

In fact, each individual, as a man, may have a particular will contrary or dissimilar to the general will which he has as a citizen. His particular interest may speak to him quite differently from the common interest: his absolute and naturally independent existence may make him look upon what he owes to the common cause as a gratuitous contribution, the loss of which will do less harm to others than the payment of it is burdensome to himself; and, regarding the moral person which constitutes the State as a persona ficta, because not a man, he may wish to enjoy the rights of citizenship without being ready to fulfil the duties of a subject. The continuance of such an injustice could not but prove the undoing of the body politic.

In order then that the social compact may not be an empty formula, it tacitly includes the undertaking, which alone can give force to the rest, that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be compelled to do so by the whole body. This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to his country, secures him against all personal dependence. In this lies the key to the working of the political machine; this alone legitimises civil undertakings, which, without it, would be absurd, tyrannical, and liable to the most frightful abuses.


THE passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Then only, when the voice of duty takes the place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does man, who so far had considered only himself, find that he is forced to act on different principles, and to consult his reason before listening to his inclinations. Although, in this state, he deprives himself of some advantages which he got from nature, he gains in return others so great, his faculties are so stimulated and developed, his ideas so extended, his feelings so ennobled, and his whole soul so uplifted, that, did not the abuses of this new condition often degrade him below that which he left, he would be bound to bless continually the happy moment which took him from it for ever, and, instead of a stupid and unimaginative animal, made him an intelligent being and a man.

Let us draw up the whole account in terms easily commensurable. What man loses by the social contract is his natural liberty and an unlimited right to everything he tries to get and succeeds in getting; what he gains is civil liberty and the proprietorship of all he possesses. If we are to avoid mistake in weighing one against the other, we must clearly distinguish natural liberty, which is bounded only by the strength of the individual, from civil liberty, which is limited by the general will; and possession, which is merely the effect of force or the right of the first occupier, from property, which can be founded only on a positive title.

We might, over and above all this, add, to what man acquires in the civil state, moral liberty, which alone makes him truly master of himself; for the mere impulse of appetite is slavery, while obedience to a law which we prescribe to ourselves is liberty. But I have already said too much on this head, and the philosophical meaning of the word liberty does not now concern us.

EACH member of the community gives himself to it, at the moment of its foundation, just as he is, with all the resources at his command, including the goods he possesses. This act does not make possession, in changing hands, change its nature, and become property in the hands of the Sovereign; but, as the forces of the city are incomparably greater than those of an individual, public possession is also, in fact, stronger and more irrevocable, without being any more legitimate, at any rate from the point of view of foreigners. For the State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights; but, in relation to other powers, it is so only by the right of the first occupier, which it holds from its members.

The right of the first occupier, though more real than the right of the strongest, becomes a real right only when the right of property has already been established. Every man has naturally a right to everything he needs; but the positive act which makes him proprietor of one thing excludes him from everything else. Having his share, he ought to keep to it, and can have no further right against the community. This is why the right of the first occupier, which in the state of nature is so weak, claims the respect of every man in civil society. In this right we are respecting not so much what belongs to another as what does not belong to ourselves.

In general, to establish the right of the first occupier over a plot of ground, the following conditions are necessary: first, the land must not yet be inhabited; secondly, a man must occupy only the amount he needs for his subsistence; and, in the third place, possession must be taken, not by an empty ceremony, but by labour and cultivation, the only sign of proprietorship that should be respected by others, in default of a legal title.

In granting the right of first occupancy to necessity and labour, are we not really stretching it as far as it can go? Is it possible to leave such a right unlimited? Is it to be enough to set foot on a plot of common ground, in order to be able to call yourself at once the master of it? Is it to be enough that a man has the strength to expel others for a moment, in order to establish his right to prevent them from ever returning? How can a man or a people seize an immense territory and keep it from the rest of the world except by a punishable usurpation, since all others are being robbed, by such an act, of the place of habitation and the means of subsistence which nature gave them in common? When Nunez Balboa, standing on the sea-shore, took possession of the South Seas and the whole of South America in the name of the crown of Castile, was that enough to dispossess all their actual inhabitants, and to shut out from them all the princes of the world? On such a showing, these ceremonies are idly multiplied, and the Catholic King need only take possession all at once, from his apartment, of the whole universe, merely making a subsequent reservation about what was already in the possession of other princes.

We can imagine how the lands of individuals, where they were contiguous and came to be united, became the public territory, and how the right of Sovereignty, extending from the subjects over the lands they held, became at once real and personal. The possessors were thus made more dependent, and the forces at their command used to guarantee their fidelity. The advantage of this does not seem to have been felt by ancient monarchs, who called themselves Kings of the Persians, Scythians, or Macedonians, and seemed to regard themselves more as rulers of men than as masters of a country. Those of the present day more cleverly call themselves Kings of France, Spain, England, etc.: thus holding the land, they are quite confident of holding the inhabitants.

The peculiar fact about this alienation is that, in taking over the goods of individuals, the community, so far from despoiling them, only assures them legitimate possession, and changes usurpation into a true right and enjoyment into proprietorship. Thus the possessors, being regarded as depositaries of the public good, and having their rights respected by all the members of the State and maintained against foreign aggression by all its forces, have, by a cession which benefits both the public and still more themselves, acquired, so to speak, all that they gave up. This paradox may easily be explained by the distinction between the rights which the Sovereign and the proprietor have over the same estate, as we shall see later on.

It may also happen that men begin to unite one with another before they possess anything, and that, subsequently occupying a tract of country which is enough for all, they enjoy it in common, or share it out among themselves, either equally or according to a scale fixed by the Sovereign. However the acquisition be made, the right which each individual has to his own estate is always subordinate to the right which the community has over all: without this, there would be neither stability in the social tie, nor real force in the exercise of Sovereignty.

I shall end this chapter and this book by remarking on a fact on which the whole social system should rest: i.e., that, instead of destroying natural inequality, the fundamental compact substitutes, for such physical inequality as nature may have set up between men, an equality that is moral and legitimate, and that men, who may be unequal in strength or intelligence, become every one equal by convention and legal right

[Serafina]

I think this is a good point to explain a few more details of my ideal system.

A good point would have been right at the start. But at least you've done it after several challenges.

Children would be in just about the same situation they're in at the moment until they reach adulthood, when they would be given a choice to formally become a citizen or not. This is a large part of society 'taken care of'.

This would in fact not be the same situation as right now, since children currently gain their rights gradually (and have many right from the start). In your system (as you state below), children would have no rights until a single, arbirtrarily chosen point.
A simple example: A 16-year (who has certain rights under the current system) old could rack up a crime record, or debts, or something like that - until he is 18 and opts ouf of it by not entering the social contract.

Assuming an adult chooses to become a citizen, they are like a current citizen unless they opt of it.

This provides the same loophole as above, albeit even worse. Just do a lot of bad stuff an escape responsiblity by ending your contract (which can apparently be done at will).

The alternative is to become a non-citizen. Non-citizens don't pay taxes and couldn't be conscripted, but have far less rights- society could choose of course, but in exchange for having no responsibilities they would face having no healthcare, no government support, police only helping them or catching offenders against them if it is incidental to helping citizens or they have nothing else to do, and so on. Society could also vote to expel it's non-citizens if it wanted to (although as a matter of course it would allow them to sell their land first).

You realize what you are saying here, right? Essentially you want to create a giant class of second-class humans who have nearly no legal rights at all.
Under your system, i could simply shoot you on the street and take your money, and the police would not do anything at against it. After all, i am better than you, a honorable citizen with voting rights, and they'll certainly have something better to do.

Non-citizens would have severe crime problems, but they could always form militia to defend themselves (as both sides would be banned the same weapons, it would be an even fight). The ocassional enforcement would create a degree of deterrent for crooks, and neighbourhoods with citizens in them would have to be policed for their benefit (thus ensuring non-citizens are safe as an incidental matter).

Ah, so you ARE advocating anarchy - also known as the "rule of the strongest".
Under your sytem, eventually some smart person (and therefore likely a citizen) will buy a lot of weapons and people willing to use them, invade the nearest non-citizen neighborhood and take everything he wants. This is also known as a warlord-system, and under your rules there is nothing to prevent it.

I've already refuted this earlier- these things are not "objective" goods- you have provided no argument for them being so other than argument ad populorum.

Wrong, i have done that - a society which achieves these results thrives better than a society who doesn't. This is basic fact of life and a purely objective measurment.

My core axioms are the defence of life, liberty, and property. These are human rights, and therefore it is immoral to violate them.

You are removing the entity which is protecting these rights right now - society (and by extensision the government).
As we see above, non-citizens have no protection of their life - they receive no health care (certainly life-threatening) and no defense against anyone willing to kill them (self-defense is still quite dangerous). By extension, they receive no protection of their liberties - if i am stronger than you (or have more men), then i can make you do whatever i want. This includes taking your property.
Society is providing protection against this. It's of course not perfect, but it's there - i can't invade a small town with five dozen armed thugs and some armed vehicles and enslave the population. Under your system i can do that as long as i get more men and weapons (or better ones) than the village i want to invade.

On the rest of that drivel: How do you do your priorizing? It seems fairly arbitrary to me.

It is immoral to sacrifice one person's Life, Liberty, or Property for another's without their consent.

Wait a minute. So if you are trapped in a burning building (likely, since there would be no one enforcing building standards) and i risk my life to save you - i have done something immoral (since i was willing to sacrifice my life in order to safe yours) by your moral system?
Yeez, society would really collapse if you were in charge.



Seriously, your "system" is so messed-up that i don't even want to call it that. It's literary anarchism, with all that implies.

[Broomstick]

Funny, I though I saw people in this very thread agree to the concept of the social contract. You do realize that not every shares your stupid viewpoint, yes?

Of course not everybody shares my viewpoint- what I'm pointing out is that the sum total of people who have heard social contract theory and disagree with it are numerous enough to cast doubt on the theory.

And there are people who don't believe in evolution, but that doesn't make it untrue, and there are even people who refuse to believe the Earth is round, but that doesn't make it untrue.

Finding a bunch of people to “cast doubt” on a theory doesn't make the theory untrue.

Get up off your fat, lazy ass and work as a crewman for passage. Is it that hard a concept? You want something then you trade something you have – your money, your labor, your asshole for the captain of a ship to ass-fuck – for something you want. Like passage to a lawless territory. I would have thought a free-market Randroid such as yourself would understand how that works.

I'll admit I didn't think of that, although the question still remains of if the captain would agree to a deal for labor. (I don't have the money, and statisically most captains would be male hetrosexuals)

No, you twit – you work for your passage, it's an option young men have been taking advantage of for millennia. YES, it is entirely possible to exchange dumb, manual labor instead of money for passage as there is still much to be done even on modern ships. Hire out to clean things, to cook... in other words, there are ways to travel on little or no money. Hell, bargain astutely you'll not only get “free” passage you might even earn some money along the way but that's strictly up to whatever deal you want to make.

It's your lack of knowledge about such things that not only makes you look young and naive, it's also what tells me you have never actually had to take care of yourself in the real world. You're still living with mommy and daddy.

Nope, that is NOT my point at all, once again you are trying to hammer inconvenient items into your preconceived world view. What I am saying is that Person B can't compensate Person A then person A is shit out of luck. That's how it works in the real world. I said nothing about taking money from anyone else, YOU pulled that out of your ass-of-holding which is so full of knee jerk assumptions that it's a wonder there's room for shit in your colon.

It seems I misinterpreted your argument- I'm sorry, I assumed you would at least be consistent.

No, you fucktard you confused me with someone else, THAT's where you're getting confused. As I said, keep names attached to what you're quoting you'll have less trouble with that. As I have done up to this point in this post. Learn by example.

To refute your argument, I'll point out that "blood out of a stone" scenarios are usually considered acceptable with most civil law matters, so why not with matters for which you advocate international reparations?

It's not so much “acceptable” as “bowing to reality”. It is quite common for judgments in civilian cases to require repayments that are, frankly, impossible within a lifetime. The judgment stands, even if not collectible. Should such a person, say, win the lottery their winning will be confiscated to pay the debt, it is in no way forgiven merely due to inability to pay.

Bullshit. Unremitting propaganda 24/7 is coercive.

2- 24/7 propaganda is not actually coercive. To quote wikipedia:
Coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force. Such actions are used as leverage, to force the victim to act in the desired way. ...

Note what I have bolded – all of that can be done verbally as well as physically.

And secondly, as I have pointed out, tribal property structures are far different than the national communism/socialism arising out of Marx. Nor are all tribes “communist” in the sense you mean it. There were settled Native groups that had frank ownership of land and possessions, such as the Iroquois - although with them landownership was inherited via one's mother, land/farming rights were not something that could normally be sold, and men simply did not own land, only the women did. You do realize that Native Americans were a hugely diverse collection of communities?

Of course they were diverse, but that doesn't mean SOME generalisations apply (a continent isn't large enough for there to be no noticable similarities). I may have been a little too broad in doing so, though.

Yes, you were.

My parents, the ACTUAL people who I owe for being raised, wouldn't mind such a course of action. As I've been arguing the whole time, since there was no contract I don't owe an abstract for indirect benefits.

Right.. you in no way benefited from public education, public waterworks (water, sewer), the public power grid, the police who kept your neighborhood safe so your parents could spend time raising you instead of defending the homestead, the government that instituted traffic regulations so your parents could drive you places in relative safety, you never benefited from doctors (most of whom were in public education at some point, or were loaned money for their medical education), you never had any teachers, your parents built their house themselves with no help whatsoever from tradesmen, didn't use a bank for a loan...

You are so ignorant it is truly appalling. You are thoroughly imbedded in society and owe it as much as your parents, for the simple reasons your parents owe much to it just by existing in society.

1- Just because some groups have a Constitution doesn't mean all do. My points still apply to the ones that don't.

But CLEARLY you have no fucking clue which ones do or don't. Until you do some actual research you're talking out of your ass here.[/quote]

2- I said I'd advocate a formal constitution- I didn't explain well enough the details I'd be advocating. (I admit I made a mistake in not realising the Cherokee still did, though. I assumed they'd have abandoned it when it didn't persuade the U.S to stop taking their land)

Why the FUCK would the Cherokee give up their constitution because some other nation is abusing them? Did the US give up the constitution when attacked by Japan in 1941. Do you have a brain? Have you ever actually used it to think?

You just ASSUMED Natives were ignorant primitives picking their noses. They are, actually, just as intelligent as the so-called “civilized” peoples, what they usually lack is material technology – something the Cherokee rapidly acquired as soon as they could.

I'll also point out that there are now three main divisions of Cherokee in the US: Those forcibly removed to Oklahoma, those who voluntarily and of their own free will traded their eastern lands for lands out west and some money from the US government (they did that before the forced removals and are called “Old Settlers”), and those who escaped the removals and never lost their lands (my in-laws are among that group). Which just goes to show that this is all much more complicated that it first appears. Now, repeat that level of complexity for all the remaining Native groups in the western hemisphere, but realize the differences will be considerable between each group.

3- Admittedly I'm probably extrapolating a bit too much from what little I know of Aboriginal and Stone Age tribes.

Yes, you are. Because most “aboriginal” groups around the world are actually past stone tools, and even those who until recently relied on stone tools still have some very sophisticated technologies.

4- How do you justify the "piece of shit" claim?

It is an insult. As I mentioned previously, I have considerable contempt for you.

Nor is the world entitled to rob them blind, either.

The possessions they occupy are, in effect, not their own- they've profited from immoral acts, and while it isn't their fault they need to return the stolen goods. (Or, when the stolen goods are passed on, compensation for them)

So, you're saying that all of the money and goods I earned through my own labor over my lifetime are not really mine? What happened to property rights? Sure, if I own something stolen I should give it back but if it's something I earned then by what right does someone else come in and take it as reparations for something that happened in the past that I had nothing to do with?

Let's take the example of reparations for American slavery – I never owned slaves. None of my ancestors owned slaves because my family came here AFTER the Civil War. I don't occupy the site of a former plantation. How have I, personally, benefited from American slavery that occurred generations before I was born and that my ancestors had nothing to do with? How is depriving me of what I've earned through my own efforts in any way just in such an circumstance?

You are so fucking ignorant it's amazing – WHERE did you get the notion that the “ancient tribesmen” would have simply kicked people out? I'm back to the Cherokee again – I'm a little more familiar with them than others because quite a few of my in-laws are Cherokee – where if a white man married an Native woman he'd be considered a member of the group but if a Native man married a white woman he was expected to leave and live with his wife, and no children by a non-Cherokee woman would be considered Cherokee. Any slaves were also seen as members of the group, and indeed after the Civil War the former Cherokee slaves were given Cherokee citizenship regardless of blood relations.

That's just one group. Native Americans exhibited every form of marriage and citizenship known anywhere else. In some, membership passed through the mother, some through the father, some were open to outsiders joining the group, some irrevocably hostile to immigrants. Nice going trying to hammer them into one homogeneous mess. Do you make it a habit to stereotype other ethnic groups?

I assumed they would have hated the whites for stealing their land, and would want a return to the good old days. Admittedly, for some tribes I was probably wrong.

Yes, you fucking WERE wrong. The Cherokee had no problems with intermarriage and there was a LOT of it – some of the major leaders in the Cherokee nation in the early 1800's had acquired the English surnames through intermarriage (white men marrying Native women, so the children were considered full tribal members). It was much closer to the concept of a modern nation allowing immigrants and their children to have full societal status that it was to the insular racism you are assuming. Of course, I will also hasten to add that that is just ONE group out of many, and others were pretty harshly racist. And while there were certainly some whites who happily forced the Natives off the land others were opposed to the idea and helped their Native neighbors stay in place, which is why the Eastern Band Cherokee exist and still live on their ancestral lands. Unlike you, the Cherokee are capable of seeing those of another ethnic group/nation as good and bad individuals instead of simply lumping them all into one basket due to citizenship.

Bullshit. The “free market” is not capable of pulling this off. Just the sheer logistics of transporting that many people from one continent to another is daunting, and it strains credulity that it could be done at all. Who the fuck do you think will PAY for those transportation costs? I don't know what the carrying capacity of every ship and airplane in the world would be, but even assuming you used all of them for that purpose and nothing else (already an insane proposition) it would take an enormous amount of fuel and time to do this. It is not possible.

The vast majority wouldn't be transported to another country at first- prices would skyrocket for ships, so they wouldn't be able to afford it. As a result, large numbers would end up in Canada and Mexico. Eventually (over a period of maybe 1-2 years) if there was enough desire to move more and more would be able to do so over time.

You moron – why would such a land give-back be restricted to just the US? As soon it happened every Native in the western hemisphere would be clamoring for land back and they CERTAINLY would not be taking in non-Native refugees.

Saying something, being contradicted, then saying “oh, that's not really what I meant”. I noted an example previously.

I'm only 18 years old, and have Aspergers Syndrome. Sometimes I'm not good at clarifying myself.

Let me say this just once: “Aspergers Syndrome” is not a get out of jail free card around here. You will not be cut any slack on account of it, ESPECIALLY not by our other Aspergers affected people who are respected members of this board and who can play by the rules.

If you're 18, well, you're young. Time alone will cure that. However, you are also ignorant and naïve. It remains to be seen if THAT will be fixed.

You have already demonstrated an appalling ignorance in several areas of knowledge, therefore, I will assume you are ignorant until proven otherwise. Or until proven stupid.

Why don't you give some actual examples?

I have. Multiple times in this thread. Go back and re-read my posts, as you apparently are not paying attention.