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Orwellingly Yurz
SFN Regular
USA
529 Posts |
 Posted - 11/16/2007 : 22:10:37 [Permalink]
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OY: Dude wrote:
"I can't blame a hospital for offering a premium service. I can, however, blame our government for leaving people hanging in the wind to die preventable deaths due to lack of insurance."
Orwellingly Yurz writes:
Can't disagree with you on that, Dude. However, your good thought
only reinforces our argument we need a moderate government. Good politicans realize we need capitalism in order to thrive, but also know that capitalism can't be trusted to entirely run 'the shop' any way big business wants to. Moreover, a good politician is aware that government controlling business to a great degree doesn't work well either. Hello moderation.
When a government is controlled and run by people who believe government is a faulty social mechanism (Suprise!) behold: a self
fulfilling prophecy. Thank you Ronald Wilson Reagan, look at what
you've wrought!
The George Forrest Gump Administration has made it so clear for us. Right now, we're too Right, right?
"I'm tared. I'm gonna go home and lay down."
OY---with a whole bunch of Veys.
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"The modern conservative...is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."
--John Kenneth Galbraith
If dogs run free
Then what must be,
Must be...
And that is all
--Bob Dylan
The neo-cons have gotten welfare for themselves down to a fine art.
--me
"The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights."
--J. Paul Getty
"The great thing about Art isn't what it give us, but what we become through it."
--Oscar Wilde
"We have Art in order not to die of life."
--Albert Camus
"I cling like a miser to the freedom I lose when surrounded by an abundance of things."
--Albert Camus
"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."
--Oscar Wilde |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/16/2007 : 23:23:42 [Permalink]
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I'd go a bit further and say that moderate government isn't what we need. We need reality and evidence based government. We already have a reasonable set of ideals, laid out over 200 years ago by some very smart people, to work from. Issues that aren't supportable by evidence and reasoned argument are not, imo, issues that our government (or any other for that matter) should take up.
Sadly, I all to often get the impression that what I suggest is some radical concept. Well, if thats the case, then lets hear it for radicalism.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2007 : 05:14:23 [Permalink]
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| We also need a reality, and evidence-based media to help us run a reality, and evidence-based government. Instead, we have a short-term-profit-based media, helping us to swallow the policies of a short-term-profit-based government. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2007 : 07:35:15 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: | I'd go a bit further and say that moderate government isn't what we need. We need reality and evidence based government. We already have a reasonable set of ideals, laid out over 200 years ago by some very smart people, to work from. Issues that aren't supportable by evidence and reasoned argument are not, imo, issues that our government (or any other for that matter) should take up. |
I agree with you in principle, but part of the problem is that one of the ideals laid out by the founding fathers was phrased including vague mysticism (the "self evident" concepts of human rights bestowed on us by our "Creator"). This sort of language is great for poetry and ceremony, but not so great for hammering out clear public policies. First we need a way to say that the source of our rights is ourselves - while simultaneously maintaining our conviction that human rights are a great idea and necessary for a peaceful and decent society. Next, we need to figure out exactly what those human rights are and should be. What is freedom? What is the pursuit of happiness? We understand these ideas in the abstract, but when it gets down to details, what is essential for one person may seem silly, obscene, or despicable to another.
Reality and evidence based government would be a huge step in the right direction. But unless all the factions of our diverse society come to a practical agreement on exactly what our ideals include when applied, it wouldn't be enough. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2007 : 11:35:49 [Permalink]
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marfknox said:
I agree with you in principle, but part of the problem is that one of the ideals laid out by the founding fathers was phrased including vague mysticism (the "self evident" concepts of human rights bestowed on us by our "Creator"). This sort of language is great for poetry and ceremony, but not so great for hammering out clear public policies. First we need a way to say that the source of our rights is ourselves - while simultaneously maintaining our conviction that human rights are a great idea and necessary for a peaceful and decent society. Next, we need to figure out exactly what those human rights are and should be. What is freedom? What is the pursuit of happiness? We understand these ideas in the abstract, but when it gets down to details, what is essential for one person may seem silly, obscene, or despicable to another.
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Go read some natural rights philosophy. Start with Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Paine.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2007 : 14:53:20 [Permalink]
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Dude wrote: | Go read some natural rights philosophy. Start with Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Thomas Paine. |
I am well aware of the intellectual ideas that inspired the Declaration of Independence. However, the general public is not, and the most popular foundation for moral and ethical systems in the Western world continues to be the idea that human life is made sacred by some mystical force. John Locke wrote against things which offended the laws of nature, blurring the distinction between actual natural laws (which cannot be broken by people!) and things which are naturally offensive to the ethical sensibilities of most people.
In The Rights of Man Thomas Paine wrote: To understand the nature and quantity of government proper for man, it is necessary to attend to his character. As Nature created him for social life, she fitted him for the station she intended. In all cases she made his natural wants greater than his individual powers. No one man is capable, without the aid of society, of supplying his own wants, and those wants, acting upon every individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as gravitation acts to a centre.
But she has gone further. She has not only forced man into society by a diversity of wants which the reciprocal aid of each other can supply, but she has implanted in him a system of social affections, which, though not necessary to his existence, are essential to his happiness. There is no period in life when this love for society ceases to act. It begins and ends with our being. |
Of course Paine is using poetic metaphor. He does not mean to say that nature is a conscious being that had a clear intention when it created mankind. Right? Then again, what science is this based on? The science done up to today on human nature is rather complicated and still doesn't yield any clear answers on how societies and governments should order themselves. I've read Paine. I have a copy of Common Sense in my home. In talking about human rights, Paine starts with big-picture philosophy and then goes on to more and more detailed ideas about political and social action, all of which follows from his premises, but none of which necessarily follows from his philosophical premises, and this is exactly the problem. Philosophy isn't going to solve our problems any easier than religion.
The natural rights philosophies you refer to might solve the first problem I mentioned (assuming that people with mystical inclinations both accept and understand them!) but it does not solve the second problem of the specifics. In short, how much of our natural rights should we give up in the social contract? We could argue and fight and rage wars over this indefinitely. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 11/17/2007 : 15:57:19 [Permalink]
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marfknox wrote:
| Of course Paine is using poetic metaphor. He does not mean to say that nature is a conscious being that had a clear intention when it created mankind. Right? |
Not by any reasonable measure. Paine was an extremely skilled propagandist, and he was (more or less) recruited to convey the message of the day to the average person (white male landowners), to recruit them to the revolution.
Paine does it well too. He conveys the concepts of natural rights philosophy (an essentially atheistic proposition) in terms that can be accepted by a population dominated by religious thinking.
The underlying message of the natural rights philosophy is (to me anyway) fairly simple. It is an expansion on the golden rule and how to apply it to communities and government. Yes, it may be arbitrary, but I challenge you to name any philosophy of ethics that isn't.
| The natural rights philosophies you refer to might solve the first problem I mentioned (assuming that people with mystical inclinations both accept and understand them!) |
Understanding them isn't difficult. You don't need to be a philosopher or even be particularly well educated to grasp the basics. Accepting them, on the other hand, is a real issue. 200 years ago they were used to replace monarchy and theocracy with a form of government that is focused on people instead of deities. To bad for us that theocracy is rising up yet again.
| but it does not solve the second problem of the specifics. In short, how much of our natural rights should we give up in the social contract? |
Finding that balance is not an easy thing to do. The more a group prospers the more the individuals in that group prosper as well, to a point. Where do we draw the line on how much individual freedom we give up for the benefit of the group? That is a hard question. One that will likely never be answered to the satisfaction of all. It is, however, important to constantly ask that question! The only answer I can give is my own opinion, and that is to try and make sure our social contract always allows the greatest freedom to individuals possible while protecting all individuals from harm (at the hands of the group or other individuals). The specifics change from day to day!
To backtrack for a moment:
| phrased including vague mysticism (the "self evident" concepts of human rights bestowed on us by our "Creator"). |
Well, the idea of the golden rule is self evident to most who contemplate the issue. If we recognize that we have a better chance at survival and prosperity when we function in groups, it seems very self evident.
And the specific wording of the declaration of independence:
| 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 |
(emphasis added)
The people who wrote this document were not sloppy writers prone to errors of grammar. The specific usage "their creator" is deliberately neutral, it could mean anything from some deity to a purely naturalistic origin. They left it intentionally open because it is not relevant to the greater concept, that all people are equal and should be treated accordingly.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Rapture Capitalism
