[Eureka] Why we disagree, sometimes.

[amicus]

Haven't butted in on one of these chats for a while...

Some stray observations. You can be freedom-loving in the sense of 'libertarian' and then be of the left or right, as I see it. For instance, I regard myself as a libertarian socialist. So I completely agree with amicus about compulsory schooling. Schools beyond a certain age are prisons.

But I completely disagree with him about the free market, which I regard as a self-justifying myth, when every known market is riddled with power-relations that make it unfree. (All the same it's a damned good system, if tempered by good regulation, lots of the time, and a sight better than State communism)

Another thought. As often here on Lit, this is a very USA-centred debate. An odd thing about freedom in the USA is that it seems to depend on a fantastically high level of imprisonment: more people per head of the population are in jail in the USA than in any other developed country except for Russia. What are the (usually hidden) values that say that it's ok to deprive such a large proportion of the population of their freedom? (Alas, this malaise has spread to British shores in the last ten years, our prisons are bursting at the seams)

patrick

~~~

Ah, Patrick, nearing two am here on the west coast and I have been trying to bring my participation to a close for a while, but welcome, nonetheless...


At least you began with an agreement on education.

Without delving, one might surmise that the word, 'Liberty' has something to do with why the name Libertarian was chosen.

Since liberty means freedom and socialism means slavery, then I hardly see how the concept libertarian socialist is anything but an oxymoron or at best a contradiction in terms.

An easy answer is that early libertarians, mostly guys, wanted some women to play with so they took a 'pro choice' position so they could diddle the ladies and justify it philosophically. And as 'Enry 'Iggins said, "let a woman in your life!" Women vote more socialist than men, so they basically took over the old Libertarians. (chuckles)

I open myself to being called a racist on the final part of your post.

The prison population in the United States is largely Black and Hispanic and largely for drug related crimes.

Someone can dig up the numbers and crunch them, but I think they will find that the crime rate and incarceration rate for Caucasian Americans is probably among the lowest in the western industrialized nations.

Digest that, y'all.

Amicus...

 

[DeeZire]

In a free market you are never trapped in a low wage job.

There are a lot of people trapped in low wage jobs who would be happy to learn that, in fact, they are not trapped in low wage jobs. Perhaps you would enjoy reading that book from a few years ago. I don't recall the name, but the author (a lady) tried living on low wage jobs for a year, and came away with a new appreciation for those trapped in low wage jobs.

Remember the stories about the miners, caught in the 'company store' loop? This would have been in the 1800's. No matter how hard they worked, they were always behind. For all practical purposes, they were slaves, enslaved by the free market. If it wasn't for government regulations, they'd still be enslaved. But knowing your stance on sweat shops, I can see how this example would not sway you. This just proves my point, that in your world, theories are more valid than actual reality.

I don't need a dictionary to see the truth. When word definitions take precedence over reality, it's time to take a step back and look at the big picture. Your words are not fooling anyone, unless, perhaps, they have fooled you.

I suppose I could look up 'socialism' in the dictionary, since the definition in my head is different than yours, but why bother? We both know that socialism will never come to this country - at least not until the Chinese take it over when the free market collects on the debts our country owes.

By the way, the story of your humble beginnings in the chicken coop was quite lovely. Thank you for sharing that. When I built my chicken coop, years ago, I made it tall enough so I could get inside without crawling. (It was a common sense issue.) Too bad OSHA wasn't there to demand better working conditions in your 18-inch-high space, eh? Or did you prefer the free market solution?

Never mind. I'm sure the point will be lost amongst your theories.

 

[Frank Noir]

I think I've figured out where the essential philosophical divide is between some of us here on issues like politics and responsibility and commerce and etc. For the longest time it was being put out that the difference was a matter of maturity or empathy or morality or intelligence or reasoning. But I think that's window-dressing.

I think we're just having a problem because we're defining "freedom" very differently, and seeing the right to it as requiring different stipulations because we're using different definitions.

Something like... this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Concepts_of_Liberty

 

[elsol]

ElSol:

Didn't think I had anymore to offer after that long rant El, but your statement requires a response, I think, and if not me, then whom?

According to you and what you posted, then no one can learn and no one can teach anything to anyone at anytime.

Do you really think that?

I know you don't of course. All you have to do is look around you at the marvels man has created by learning the exact same things I did.

And they learned it in entirely different circumstances than mine.

That is because 'reality' is everywhere and we all can learn from it.

It is no doubt more difficult to overcome some situations than others, the 'ghetto' example and my poverty stricken farm boy scenario are surely different, but the same reality exists for both.

Ah, well, has been a long evening...


Amicus...

Sure... people can learn.

Will all of them learn... I wouldn't bet on it because I've cleaned up after some who have not.

Thus there's really beautiful utopian mountain but there's going to be some people in there who didn't learn and then the Evil Liberal Commie Bastards are going to have ripe breeding ground for their poison... again.

I'm not even worried about the stupid peole...'cause after all they're stupid.

I got my eye on the guy between me and the SP's... 'cause he's going to be there scratching his chin, looking at me and looking at the SP's, and thinking "You know, those SP's are looking quite enviously at that ElSol guy... he's got that nice house all paid off, a couple of cars paid off, his woman gets her hair and nails done every week; all his kids go to college -- cause he ain't no fool... there's menial labor and college educated menial labor (IT *chuckle*)... If I work my cards right, I can talk those SP's into believing that their lot in life is ElSol's fault... yeah that's it, and maybe I'll get a union together -- I never did believe that thing about unions being evil, sounds like a damn cool thing to me, I get paid to cause some shit.."

If I wasn't me, then I'd be that guy... just stirring up shit because I'd rather be 'that guy' than eating shit.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I think I've figured out where the essential philosophical divide is between some of us here on issues like politics and responsibility and commerce and etc. For the longest time it was being put out that the difference was a matter of maturity or empathy or morality or intelligence or reasoning. But I think that's window-dressing.

I think we're just having a problem because we're defining "freedom" very differently, and seeing the right to it as requiring different stipulations because we're using different definitions.

Disagreement over the meaning of "freedom" is an important aspect of this, but underlying that specific is perhaps a more fundamental dispute about the nature of human nature.

Hayek on how the concept of "freedom" became corrupted:

"Socialism was to bring ‘economic freedom,’ without which political freedom was ‘not worth having.’ To make this argument sound plausible, the word ‘freedom’ was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth."

He's talking of course about the corruption of the word "rights" to mean "positive rights." Very closely related to this is another area of disagreement, whether a person fully accepts the consequences of a particular "existantial reality" - scarcity. Resources are and always will be limited, meaning there will be trade-offs, and priorities must be established. (The ultimate scarce resource is time - every human only has so much of it.)

Here's a very common version: When you hear someone say, "if government intrusion X could only save one life, etc." this is a person who is evading the reality of scarcity. In this instance it's because they are only looking at the "seen" (the one life "saved") while ignoring the "unseen" (the margin of additional human suffering in the world that will exist due to the economic growth foregone as a consequence of any government intrusion into the marketplace.) It may be that the cost of the "one life saved" is worth it in a particular instance, but the "if only one life saved" formula demonstrates that the person refuses to accept that there are two sides to this equation - a consequence of scarcity.

 

[Pure]

good posting, joe,

i think there are basic diffs regarding freedom, as rox's post above, suggests.

hayek, whom she quoted, echoes many others:

Hayek quoted by rox. "Socialism was to bring ‘economic freedom,’ without which political freedom was ‘not worth having.’ To make this argument sound plausible, the word ‘freedom’ was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth."

the claim is that 'freedom' meant, in some golden era, 'freedom from coercion', from 'arbitrary power of other men.' then'socialists' corrupted the term but introducing economic-related freedoms, such as FDRs 'freedom from want.'

the facts are quite otherwise. the issue of the "free man" is an old one, going back to the Greeks, and addressed in a deep way also by Buddhist teachers, etc.

by contrast, "freedom to buy and sell," (and related types of activity), as proposed by the right, represents a *narrowing* of the field of discussion, even when supplemented by "freedom from acts of force by others"---IOW, once you buy, you can't have it being robbed from you.

the issue is human development and its impediments. i take it as an axiom that if a person is NOT thriving, their freedom has been impaired in some way. and if there is qustion about individual application, i say the principle holds more strongly for social groups: where, in general, a group is not thriving-- like the untouchables in India-- then it has been limited in freedom in some way. in left jargon, it's an oppressed group.

rox**, though concerned with thriving, wants to conduct a further examination of a non thriving person to see whose fault it is: is he immoral, is he unmotivated?

if there's a 'yes,' which there often is, when conservatives analyse social problems, then rox declares that freedom is not really an issue, rather individual 'moral defect'. in simple terms, the poor of america are NOT lacking freedom, which would be an embarrassment to 'the land of the free'.

rather, the the american poor--rich by compariosn to the poor of most of the world-- simply make bad choices out of moral defects and defects of character caused by their families and culture (not inclined to be industrious). they have, in her view, misused the individual, moral 'freedom of choice,' and are, so to say, having to sleep in the bed they made for themselves. they do not, on her account, lack social or political freedom.

--
**i don't presume, here, to give the details of her views, but simply to refer to their basic outlines as shared by many on the right. i believe my ascriptions as to principle, are reasonably accurate, but subject to correction by her or others reading her posts.

 

[Guest]

I think that might be true. I also think there are too many instances of people using "freedom" to mean "being given enough to do what I want"--kinda like saying "I want to be free to travel, so someone must provide me a plane!"

Gosh, I could use a plane right now!

Maharat

 

[Guest]

Gosh, I could use a plane right now!

Maharat

You just wanna watch them make little planes.

 

[Guest]

You just wanna watch them make little planes.

Yeah! All the time!

Besides, if I stand down there long enough, a little plane is bound to fall on my head...

Maharat

 

[champagne1982]

<snip>I think we're just having a problem because we're defining "freedom" very differently, and seeing the right to it as requiring different stipulations because we're using different definitions.

<snip>. . . going to a dictionary and defining these words for yourself so we can speak the same language.</snip>

Miriam Webster's Online definition:

Main Entry: free·dom
Pronunciation: \ˈfrē-dəm\
Function: noun
Date: before 12th century
1: the quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care> d: ease, facility <spoke the language with freedom> e: the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom> f: improper familiarity g: boldness of conception or execution h: unrestricted use <gave him the freedom of their home>
2 a: a political right b: franchise, privilege


synonyms freedom, liberty, license mean the power or condition of acting without compulsion. freedom has a broad range of application from total absence of restraint to merely a sense of not being unduly hampered or frustrated <freedom of the press>. liberty suggests release from former restraint or compulsion <the released prisoner had difficulty adjusting to his new liberty>. license implies freedom specially granted or conceded and may connote an abuse of freedom <freedom without responsibility may degenerate into license>.

Since this is an Amero-centric board I think we can consider this one to be encompassing enough.

 

[Liar]

I think that might be true. I also think there are too many instances of people using "freedom" to mean "being given enough to do what I want"--kinda like saying "I want to be free to travel, so someone must provide me a plane!"

That's a good point. But let me for the sake of the argument, twist it a little.

If you have the political freedom to vote any way you please in an open election, that's a pretty spiffy thing.

But if you can't get the nessecary information to make an informed choice, or the means to make it to the voting booth, is it really democracy?

My definition of "freedom" is based on individuals. The less organizations (state, church and/or corporation) or other individuals have power over an individual's life (executive power, social power and/or economic power), the more freedom that individual have. This kind of power is not ony taxation and legislation.

 

[patrick1]

ethnic background and prison

I did want to respond to amicus' remarks about a 'racial' basis for the USA's high rate of imprisonment, compared to other countries.

According to the US Dep't of Justice (http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/prisons.htm), the latest figures are:

'At yearend 2006 there were 3,042 black male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,261 Hispanic male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic males and 487 white male sentenced prisoners per 100,000 white males.'

Compared to other developed countries the rate of black and Hispanic males is astronomical. But interestingly the rate for white males is also well in excess of any other country except Russia. And of course these rates are many times in excess of the rates in countries where black or Hispanic people are in the majority, so internationally the racist or neo-racist argument looks pretty thin.

The question I was really posing is, how is that the country espousing freedom has a higher rate of imprisonment than any other bar Russia?

(Hey, I don't equate socialism with slavery either, though of course the Scandinavians eager to slough off their bondage and have low pensions and lousy health care for the poor do it all the time. Still, one argument at a time)

patrick

 

[gauchecritic]

I think I've figured out where the essential philosophical divide is between some of us here on issues like politics and responsibility and commerce and etc. For the longest time it was being put out that the difference was a matter of maturity or empathy or morality or intelligence or reasoning. But I think that's window-dressing.

I think we're just having a problem because we're defining "freedom" very differently, and seeing the right to it as requiring different stipulations because we're using different definitions.

I think the problem lies more properly in using the word freedom as a noun but refraining from definition #6 at dictionary dot com:

6. exemption from the presence of anything specified (usually fol. by from): freedom from fear.

We each keep saying 'freedom' when we actually mean 'freedom from'.

In MiAmico's case freedom from government.
In my case freedom from the bottom line.

 

[amicus]

Evade and avoid, typical pattern.

"...The question I was really posing is, how is that the country espousing freedom has a higher rate of imprisonment than any other bar Russia?..."

~~~

Yes Patrick, it is quite transparent what your question intended, freedom equates to incarceration.

There was very little crime in totalitarian Russia or Germany, because troops were on every corner, it is called 'martial law' or slavery.

At least you had the honesty to present the research that indeed Blacks and Hispanics had much higher incarceration rates than Caucasians, of course, someone, surprised they haven't already, will blame that upon the terrible conditions those minority groups are under, the oppression, the slaver over 200 years ago, and besides, we stole California from the Mexicans anyway.

You also didn't factor in that violence is contagious, Black and Hispanic gang warfare and drug connections bleed over into a peaceful community and crime rates for all groups increases.

Who cares about your mantra concerning the evils of freedom and a free market, it is an oft played recording on this forum and boring after a while and few have the courage to identify the source of their hatred.

Amicus....

 

[Liar]

There was very little crime in totalitarian Russia or Germany, because troops were on every corner, it is called 'martial law' or slavery.

I guess you could say that. In the same way that you can say it's called 'martial law' or Harry Belafonte. Yes, it's called one of those things, and not the other.

 

[oggbashan]

There was very little crime in totalitarian Russia or Germany, because troops were on every corner, it is called 'martial law' or slavery.

...Amicus....

That statement is false. There was a lot of crime in both countries. In both it was a crime to be a Jew. It was a crime to criticise the state. It was a crime not to belong to the Communist or Nazi Party even if the punishment for not belonging might be as little as lack of access to resources.

The Gulags and Siberia were full of Russian Criminals. The Concentration camps in Nazi Germany were full of German Criminals. If the incarcerated population became too large both states had a simple solution - kill the prisoners. That was an easy way to redress the high percentage of criminals in the population.

Og

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

i think there are basic diffs regarding freedom, as rox's post above, suggests.

hayek, whom she quoted, echoes many others:

Hayek quoted by rox. "Socialism was to bring ‘economic freedom,’ without which political freedom was ‘not worth having.’ To make this argument sound plausible, the word ‘freedom’ was subjected to a subtle change in meaning. The word had formerly meant freedom from coercion, from the arbitrary power of other men. Now it was made to mean freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course, merely another name for power or wealth. The demand for the new freedom was thus only another name for the old demand for a redistribution of wealth."

the claim is that 'freedom' meant, in some golden era, 'freedom from coercion', from 'arbitrary power of other men.' then'socialists' corrupted the term but introducing economic-related freedoms, such as FDRs 'freedom from want.'

the facts are quite otherwise. the issue of the "free man" is an old one, going back to the Greeks, and addressed in a deep way also by Buddhist teachers, etc.

by contrast, "freedom to buy and sell," (and related types of activity), as proposed by the right, represents a *narrowing* of the field of discussion, even when supplemented by "freedom from acts of force by others"---IOW, once you buy, you can't have it being robbed from you.

the issue is human development and its impediments. i take it as an axiom that if a person is NOT thriving, their freedom has been impaired in some way. and if there is qustion about individual application, i say the principle holds more strongly for social groups: where, in general, a group is not thriving-- like the untouchables in India-- then it has been limited in freedom in some way. in left jargon, it's an oppressed group.

rox**, though concerned with thriving, wants to conduct a further examination of a non thriving person to see whose fault it is: is he immoral, is he unmotivated?

if there's a 'yes,' which there often is, when conservatives analyse social problems, then rox declares that freedom is not really an issue, rather individual 'moral defect'. in simple terms, the poor of america are NOT lacking freedom, which would be an embarrassment to 'the land of the free'.

rather, the the american poor--rich by compariosn to the poor of most of the world-- simply make bad choices out of moral defects and defects of character caused by their families and culture (not inclined to be industrious). they have, in her view, misused the individual, moral 'freedom of choice,' and are, so to say, having to sleep in the bed they made for themselves. they do not, on her account, lack social or political freedom.

--
**i don't presume, here, to give the details of her views, but simply to refer to their basic outlines as shared by many on the right. i believe my ascriptions as to principle, are reasonably accurate, but subject to correction by her or others reading her posts.

That is not completely inaccurate. As one might expect my views are a bit more nuanced . For example, I have no illusions that most individuals who have been raised in an underclass family and social environment - the hallmarks of which are self-destructive habits - can easily make the choice to abandon those habits and create a bourgeois life for themselves. Almost by definition they don't recognize those self destructive habits as such - they think this is just the normal way to live (and/or the only way they can live). Even if they do figure it out, that doen't mean they automatically know what non self-destructive habits look like, or how to adopt them.

That's rather different from "Roxanne wants to conduct a further examination of a non thriving person to see whose fault it is: is he immoral, is he unmotivated?" Rather, I want to be realistic about this question: How do we fix this for masses of people?

Frankly, we don't have a clue. Something like "Underclass Anonymous" might do it with individuals who are highly motivated, but most in this class are (by definition) not motivated. Government "welfare-to-work" programs along these lines have had limited success at best. It doesn't help that our society sends so many mixed messages in this regard, for example ones that declare the tortured, dysfunctional life and lifestyle as the "genuine" one.

The statistical reality is that people who get into the American job market and stay there seldom remain poor unless they do something self-destructive. And behaving self-destructively is the hallmark of the underclass.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the way, here's why this is relevent to the thread: If there are a lot of poor people who can't get ahead due to legal restrictions, such as Indian untouchables* or American blacks before civil rights laws of the early 1960s, then those people can be accurately be described as unfree. If there are poor people for the reasons discussed above, many on the left call them "unfree," but it's not really accurate, and not really useful. Actual "unfreedom" can be fixed by passing a law, but no law can fix this problem.

*The untouchables may be legally free, but thousands of years of cultural tradition may still prevent their advancement. The underclass problem in the US is different. There are white underclasses, and racism didn't cause that. There are many blacks who have acheived middle-class, bourgeois lives - perhaps a majority - which would not be possible if racism imposed an absolute bar to advancement.

 

[amicus]

Originally Posted by amicus View Post

There was very little crime in totalitarian Russia or Germany, because troops were on every corner, it is called 'martial law' or slavery.

...Amicus....

That statement is false. There was a lot of crime in both countries. In both it was a crime to be a Jew. It was a crime to criticise the state. It was a crime not to belong to the Communist or Nazi Party even if the punishment for not belonging might be as little as lack of access to resources.

That statement is true and I stand by it.

Ogg, possibly suffering effects of celebrating his recent 21st birthday, would have us believe that Jews, Gypsys, Blacks and Poles were criminals. I doubt he really believes that.

If any of those Ogg named, and countless others who fell under the boot of totalitarianism were guilty of anything thing, it was expressing the basic nature of man to seek freedom and liberty.

There are countless studies documenting that controlled people in a socialist or semi socialist state, commit far fewer crimes. With surveillance, monitoring and a 'brown shirt' on every corner, there just isn't much opportunity to mug old ladies.

Amicus...

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

We each keep saying 'freedom' when we actually mean 'freedom from'.

In MiAmico's case freedom from government.
In my case freedom from the bottom line.

Are you saying you are unfree as long as you have to work to make a living?

Revealing.

 

[amicus]

Yes, Roxanne, exactly.

At the root, is a hatred of being human and of the necessity of sustaining one's own life by the fruit of his labor.

They wish were were robots, without needs other than a battery recharge now and then, and somebody would do even that for them.

Ami...

 

[oggbashan]

Originally Posted by amicus View Post

There was very little crime in totalitarian Russia or Germany, because troops were on every corner, it is called 'martial law' or slavery.

...Amicus....




That statement is true and I stand by it.

Ogg, possibly suffering effects of celebrating his recent 21st birthday, would have us believe that Jews, Gypsys, Blacks and Poles were criminals. I doubt he really believes that.

If any of those Ogg named, and countless others who fell under the boot of totalitarianism were guilty of anything thing, it was expressing the basic nature of man to seek freedom and liberty.

There are countless studies documenting that controlled people in a socialist or semi socialist state, commit far fewer crimes. With surveillance, monitoring and a 'brown shirt' on every corner, there just isn't much opportunity to mug old ladies.

Amicus...

The Russian and German States classed them as criminals. I don't class them as criminals. Those states also classed anyone who criticised the state as criminal. If you had lived in either state you would be classed as a criminal. So would I. Perhaps we would have shared a cell while we were still alive.

 

[amicus]

You discover things in the strangest places sometimes...

Page 176 of the Terry Goodkind book I am reading:

"Because, many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see freepeople as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sunlight will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest..."

That speaks volumes to me in the quest of the left for equality among all and allegiance to a 'leader'; therein speaks the voice of every malignant dictator that ever lived and oppressed.

amicus...

 

[amicus]

The Russian and German States classed them as criminals. I don't class them as criminals. Those states also classed anyone who criticised the state as criminal. If you had lived in either state you would be classed as a criminal. So would I. Perhaps we would have shared a cell while we were still alive.

~~~

Well, Ogg, your chickens come home to roost yet again; are they criminals or not?

You see, that subjective, relativist ethic of your clan, has trapped you once again in your own rhetoric.

Amicus...

 

[oggbashan]

~~~

Well, Ogg, your chickens come home to roost yet again; are they criminals or not?

You see, that subjective, relativist ethic of your clan, has trapped you once again in your own rhetoric.

Amicus...

Bullshit!

Og

 

[lisa123414]

I think, I may be missing a bit, since I am not reading all from every poster here. However, like a few others, it may need to be pointed out that some opinions which are logical, are unpopular. I felt a bit of guilt at the time, when Stella posted a thread about one of her cats. She wondered about the ethics of using someone else's money to treat her loved one.

Joe said that using someone else's money would be unethical, which should have been agreed upon, seeing as Stella herself stated that her investors would frown upon this action.

The thing is, Stella and Joe were in agreement. In the fullness of time, Stella used her own funds to help her cat. She knew, that her investors would not stick around if she used their funds for something other that what was agreed upon.

It reminds me of the conundrum, should one steal bread to feed one's family? Of course, but don't be surprised if the person from whom you have stolen is not happy. Don't be surprised if that person is able to legally prevail.

Anyway, there is right and wrong, AND there is what we gotta do.