JimC wrote:Seth wrote:
...My argument is that the most successful social systems are those that limit the use of coercive force on the part of the collective against the individual as much as is possible consistent with ordered liberty and peaceable social interactions while maximizing the ability of each and every individual to satisfy their individualistic urges for individual liberty and freedom of action to the extent that such activity does not harmfully interfere with the equal exercise of such liberties and freedoms of action (rights) by others....
As a general statement, I can agree with that. The issue is that we have two competing rationales when examining a particular social system, government, or set of laws. There is a spectrum, from absolute collectivism at one end (North Korea comes the closest at the moment, but Islamic theocracies can be close as well, with the word of Allah replacing the word of Marx). At the other end is extreme libertarianism - which even Seth does not quite reach...
My point, as always, is that the extremes are typically damaging or simply unworkable. That, however, leaves a pretty wide range of systems where the power given to governments to regulate society varies considerably. In most of the middle area, it is perfectly possible for free enterprise to co-exist with government structures which are there to help make society fairer, protect the weak, and keep a check on the tendency of free enterprise to morph into the modern day equivalent of the robber baron... I'm also well aware that excessive use of government regulation can be stultifying, oppressive and likely to be inefficient as well. The left can quite easily drift into areas which are inconsistent with valid individual freedoms.
The critical point, however, is that it is not up to Seth, or rEv, or me to insist that our particular vision for a good balance is the correct one. Each society, each country, should have a chance, through admittedly imperfect democratic processes, to choose political groupings which work reasonably well for that society. If, pragmatically, a given set of policies is failing, the ballot box is the only remedy that makes sense. Not guns, not heroic militia, not revolution, because they inevitably cause more harm (except in very extreme circumstances) than they relieve.
I disagree in part. The problem with your premise in your last paragraph is that it presumes "democratic process" to be the optimal method of resolving such disputes and ambiguities. That is a fundamentally socialist premise because it assumes
a priori that the needs of the many outweigh the needs (or rights) of the few and that the needs of the collective must prevail over the rights of the few if some "admittedly imperfect democratic processes" are the metric.
The argument for individualism over collectivism, and the notion of Organic Rights is intended to state categorically that there are some aspects of human nature and activity
that the collective has no power to take away even if everyone but the individual himself agrees its the right thing to do.
That is the fundamental premise of the United States and its system of laws, that we, as individuals, have "certain unalienable rights" that are not subject to popular vote.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Our most fundamental premise of society in the US is that government is instituted and exists
for the purpose of securing the unalienable rights of the individual, and thereby the rights of ALL of the individuals who make up the society, not to secure the power of the collective, democratically expressed or otherwise, over the individual.
And while I agree that democratic processes are the preferred method of resolving disputes over proper public policy,
those processes are limited in their scope by the fundamental premise of the Constitution of protecting INDIVIDUAL rights. Therefore while the ballot box is of course the preferred method of changing society it is not, and cannot be the sole method because of the threat that either a demagogue and tyrant will take control of the government and disallow public votes or the collective itself will take on the mantle of tyranny through the tyranny of the majority trying to vote away the supreme and unalienable rights of the individual which our entire system is set up to protect.
And that is why the concept of "natural rights," which I express in a non-theistic non-God-given way as "Organic Rights" that derive from scientific principles and observations, exists and holds control in our, or indeed in any just society. The concept is there to say to those who might wish to impose their view of proper social operation on others to the detriment of those other's unalienable natural, organic rights, "You cannot do so because certain rights enjoyed by the individual shall and cannot be removed by your vote."
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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