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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/9/2009 8:00:49 PM |
i then went on to give examples as to how the u.s. is surviving quite well and that the press and speach is often restricted here
Then you obviously don't live in a free country! | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/10/2009 5:47:48 AM |
The only way this could be achieved is if every single person on the planet was completely selfless and ethical. Even if you could put togther a community of people that live ethically, never commit crimes, share everything, and care for eachother that community could exist free of all laws. BUT eventually someone else who doesnt share that mentality is going to come in and just conquer them. And history is written.
I don't think they would be conquered if they can fight for their freedom, and the resulting violence would strengthen their beliefs in peace. Of course in our society, we can have a horrible world war that should have been the War to end all wars, then have another world war almost 40 years later, within the lifetime of a single person. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/10/2009 6:09:44 AM |
i'm missing where you think i "switched gears". i disagreed with this statement from another poster, "A free society can survive without a lot of things but it cannot survive without free speech or a free press."
i then went on to give examples as to how the u.s. is surviving quite well and that the press and speach is often restricted here. No recap necessary. I read it the first time.  But darn, I was interested in your opinion that I asked about. Oh well.
we do not have totally free speach and press in this country. i don't get into definitions of words for precisely this reason. My mistake. I asked for your definition to better understand your position. It didn't occur to me that you "don't get into definitions." I guess I was misled on that point when you posted,
if by definition of society you mean a group of two or more humans then no, a free society cannot exist. Silly me.
Thanks anyway. | |
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jbogie
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Joined: 9/30/2008
Msg: 54 | |
| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/10/2009 7:10:35 AM |
i then went on to give examples as to how the u.s. is surviving quite well and that the press and speach is often restricted here
Then you obviously don't live in a free country!
never suggested i did live in a free country did i? | |
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jbogie
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Joined: 9/30/2008
Msg: 55 | |
| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/10/2009 7:16:55 AM |
i'm missing where you think i "switched gears". i disagreed with this statement from another poster, "A free society can survive without a lot of things but it cannot survive without free speech or a free press."
i then went on to give examples as to how the u.s. is surviving quite well and that the press and speach is often restricted here.
No recap necessary. I read it the first time. But darn, I was interested in your opinion that I asked about. Oh well.
we do not have totally free speach and press in this country. i don't get into definitions of words for precisely this reason.
My mistake. I asked for your definition to better understand your position. It didn't occur to me that you "don't get into definitions." I guess I was misled on that point when you posted,
if by definition of society you mean a group of two or more humans then no, a free society cannot exist.
Silly me.
Thanks anyway.
i'll take the blame but i'm just not following what it is you are asking here. i'll be happy to discuss anything with you. i don't care to get into definitions of words for the very reason you pointed out. i had to give the op an example of one definition of society. now at the risk of asking you to repeat yourself, what is your question? | |
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granz
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Joined: 6/22/2009
Msg: 56 | |
| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/10/2009 3:42:32 PM | | I don't understand why we can't come down to the most fundamental truth of our existence -- we're all human. We should be able to live our lives with nothing but peace and prosperity in declaration of fraternal love; if only we didn't get caught-up in ideology. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/11/2009 9:14:41 AM |
I don't understand why we can't come down to the most fundamental truth of our existence -- we're all human. We should be able to live our lives with nothing but peace and prosperity in declaration of fraternal love; if only we didn't get caught-up in ideology.
i think i kinda answered your point in my post on this thread message 50 .
basically what i was saying was, were hardwired to mentally towards a tendancy to form hierachy's , therefore the majority of our enterprises as a specie will be hierachical in its nature government is just another form of this hierachy tendancy.
So unless we pharmacologically use compounds we could design to alter that tendency towards heirachy formation and evolve a empathy for our fellow man.. we aint moving | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/11/2009 11:19:10 AM | Good post OP bit of revolutionary spake eh.. SO you mean NO I concur, but mite add never underestimate the people*.
* brainwashed
or otherwise - my fav kind | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/14/2009 7:40:46 AM | ...i suppose if we'd all had perfectly happy, idylic and privalaged backgrounds perhaps we could have a free society, unfortunately, how ever "freedom" seems to be simply a preserve of the few hypocritical patronizers we have misguidedly given status to | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 8/14/2009 7:50:51 AM |
if we'd all had perfectly happy, idylic and privalaged backgrounds perhaps we could have a free society, unfortunately, how ever "freedom" seems to be simply a preserve of the few hypocritical patronizers we have misguidedly given status to
If you gave them their status, why not be an "indian giver" and take it back?
I suspect even a garbageman could create a freer, far mor just society than the one they try to foist on us; why not fire your "representatives" and hire some garbagemen to "dump" the bullshit?  | |
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granz
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Joined: 6/22/2009
Msg: 63 | |
| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/12/2009 8:26:10 AM | I don't believe it's possible for freedom and social organization to co-exist, but a society (if it can be called a society) that lacks social organization should have no centralized figure of government.
I believe the closest thing we can sensibly achieve to total social freedom is to either drastically reduce the state's involvement in our lives, (i.e., a state that only maintains the fundaments of a society, and has no authority in social issues) or allow people to segregate and govern themselves based on their mutual political or religious beliefs, lifestyle, racial background, or other factors. Since the former will never happen, I vote segregation. Segregation sounds like a bad idea on paper, but humanity has proven its inability to live and let live all throughout history. It would be easier if we all kept to our own. Philosophies such as equality are often too abstract, and really can't be applied in any logical sense of the term "equal;" we still assign labels to ourselves, live with social and economic classes, and refuse equal rights and equal treatment to specific groups or ethnicities.
I know someone will take it upon themself to contradict me with the most extreme examples of such a society, so let me make this clear now -- I don't care if a society condones murder, rape, incest, bestiality, or whatever perversion can be woven in the deepest, darkest recesses of the most deranged imagination. If the people who advocate such acts wish to segregate and live within their own society, then why should anyone else be concerned with murderers killing other murderers? They can either realize that it's an exercise in futility, or merrily wipe themselves out. Two birds with one stone. No need to have them all rotting away in prison cells while tax-payers accomodate them. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/12/2009 12:01:31 PM |
Just because we have a democratic society in writing though doesn't mean we actually live in one when very little is being done in the areas of checks and balances to prevent extremes. GGarbo, nipolean, and I am sure the rest of you have made the recurring mistake - it's a republic, not a democracy and it is very important to understand the difference, because it become the necessary presupposition, or premise, for constructing the abstract policy system.
The social chaos we are experiencing, which results in a diminish of people's sense of freedom, because they do not have a choice of a selection of differing republic societies - all republics are all alike, because of the consequences of believing them to be democracies. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 12:49:00 AM | My nick, "minarcho" is short for my political self-label of minarcho-capitalist. It is a morph of minarchist and anarcho-capitalist. In my opinion, anarchy -- true, no-government anarchy, is an illusion that can never happen for more than a day or two, if ever. After that, someone would decide to exert control over someone else by force and you would once again have government. A group would decide to take over their neighbors and enslave them either a little or a lot. A group would decide they needed some rules that everyone in their area was forced to follow and you would have another government. Government is the antithesis of freedom.
So if government is the lack of freedom and true anarchy will lead to unpredictable, probably some awful government(s) then what should we do. I feel we should strive for very very very small governments that maximize individual freedom and minimize the threat of violence and control exerted from others, whether they be other governments, individuals, mercenaries, etc.
Some posts have mentioned Chomsky's version of anarchy which is anarcho-syndicalism (touted by the constitutional peasant at the beginning of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and I don't consider this to be anarchy, but rather a communistic minarchy.
Since I believe free markets are more efficient and more conducive to true freedom, I prefer a capitalistic minarchy. On a small scale, I think communes work just fine, but trying to run a large society via a commune or communism is just not workable.
In order to run any government, even a minarchy, one must, even if funding is voluntary, provide for the contingency that funding won't be sufficient and allow imposition of taxes - aka involuntary funding. These taxes or the power to tax are impositions on individual freedom but they provide a benefit -- that of freeing people of the fear of uninitiated force -- that outweighs the detriment. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to provide for protection from others, but some of us are aggressors by nature and we need to have an orderly way to keep them at bay.
In a perfect world, everyone would be healthy and industrious. We live however in a world where some people are born unable to ever take care of themselves while others can produce so much in terms of labor and creativity, they support small nations of people all by themselves. They don't live in vacuums so thy rely on others either synergistically or predatorily or a little of each. Back to those who can't or won't help themselves.
Those who can provide for themselves but aren't inclined to will only do what they neeed to. If they are given a free lunch, they will take it if it doesn't cost them too much in some other trade off like discomfort of loss of pride. There are a lot of these people in our society which is why socialist or communist movements don't work all that well in producing vibrant economies. Socialist societies however are far better than communist in this regard -- Sweden v. USSR... no contest.
Because it is sometimes hard to figure out who can't work v. who won't when their disability isn't obvious and we do feel empathy for those who can't provide for themselves rightly so. Whether or not charity alone could take care of these people is a question that can be debated, but I say, forget about that question because it can probably never be answered perfectly. Under our current system people starve and I'm sure in a pure charity (no welfare) state people would starve too. More on this later.
Taxation is unethical. It is the taking by force of somebodies past labors because that is what money is, stored wealth somebody worked to create. As I pointed out, there are times when the evil of taxation is outweighed by the good it does such as keeping people free of uninitiated force. I think, if kept to a sustainable percentage of GDP, using taxes for social welfare could also fit into this category. We should however, I think do two things to make it more effective and less harmful to liberty or freedom.
First, use the least invasive means possible for taxation - sales tax or use tax comes to mind. In today's world, we could minimize even this tax by resorting to tariffs. I would propose a system that would encourage world trade. This would take the form of all-trade tariffs on other countries equal to their tariffs on us. I wouldn't specify certain products. Just base it on last year's trade and make it across the board. If our trading partner lowers their tariffs, either across the board or on certain items, lower ours accordingly and vice versa. This would encourage other countries to lower tariffs. Getting rid of the income tax would free up all the hours now spent on tax strategy, tax preparation, tax attorneys, etc. to go toward productive efforts and would reduce government invasion of privacy.
Second, instead of using complex needs assessment, pay out the same payment to anybody who wants it. It doesn't matter whether you need it or not, everybody is entitled to $x. Provide certain basic human needs in a more cost efficient method than today. For instance, intead of housing projects or section 8 housing, create open dorms with rows of beds, showers, restrooms etc. available for a small cost since they would cheap to operate. Provide inexpensive healthy food, but without a menu available to all comers at cost. What these measures would do, would be to provide for those unable to or unwilling to care for themselves while not providing a disincentive to bettering themselves. The other half of this, is eliminating minimum wage laws so those who are only able to produce $2 per hour worth of labor can find jobs that would minimize their need to use government programs and better their situation. For those who were unable to provide for themselves AND whose care could not be handled through these one-size-fits-all programs, their assitance would be provided through private charity and of course families, churches, humanist organizations, fund drives, etc.
And all of this would increase overall individual freedom by reducing the amount of taxes needed while still providing a way for us to provide those things in our society that we value -- benevolence toward others and protection from violence and other forms of uninitiated force.
And that's the short version.  I would be happy to hear intelligent or at least thoughtful critique. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 6:50:10 AM |
trying to run a large society via a commune or communism is just not workable.
We'll see... I believe it is not only possible, but desirable and inevitable.
one must, even if funding is voluntary, provide for the contingency that funding won't be sufficient and allow imposition of taxes - aka involuntary funding
If the funding is insufficient, then the project, or whatever doesn't get funded...What's the problem? Why impose an involuntary tax and take away people's private property?
hese taxes or the power to tax are impositions on individual freedom but they provide a benefit
If the benefit was worth it, the money wouldn't have to be "squeezed" out of the people unjustly. If they wanted it, they would cough up the money willingly.
some of us are aggressors by nature
OH?...Who? Don't you think the 95% of decent people should be able to control the 5% of aggressive criminals?
Socialist societies however are far better than communist in this regard -- Sweden v. USSR... no contest.
No argument there.
there are times when the evil of taxation is outweighed by the good it does such as keeping people free of uninitiated force
Right now our tax dollars are paying for the killing of people in Afghanistan and contributing to the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. Should we be forcibly taxed to support what our conscience abhors? Aren't we complicit in these atrocities if we help pay for them?
Capitalism is based on deception. It is really a capitalist elite that already "owns" the means of production and extracts wealth from the economy through unfair taxation and/or unfair pay for labour. The truly free market doesn't exist, but people are told they are "free" when they are not. That is the deception that enslaves everyone except for a global capitalist elite of perhaps 50 people (or less) who "own" the international banks and hold whole nations "hostage" through their national debts.
I think the best solution economically would be a social credit monetary system, wholly owned and administered by "the people" and transparently run and under the scrutiny of any citizen who wants to see the books. The people would then own the means of production and reap its benefits, the profits of which would likely negate the need for taxation altogether. Another fringe benefit would be the elimination of a national debt and the right of the nation to self determination could finally be exercised, because it would no longer be "foreign owned." | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 9:48:14 AM | Dukky,
I understand what you're saying about projects getting funded if they are valuable and I DO think people would fund defense and justice system projects -- just would hate to see what would happen if everyone thought everyone ELSE was going to pony up and funding fell short and those functions went away. Not like we really have to worry about getting to this level of minarchy anytime soon. 
You sound like someone who might listen to freetalklive. I do too but I just can't quite jump from the Mark paradigm to the Ian paradigm. To anyone who doesn't listen to freetalklive, I guess you'll just have to look up the podcast to get that.
Your capitalist greed err elite comment is really misplaced IMHO. Freedom includes the freedom to prosper individually, not just collectively. It's the government that keeps the "capitalists" you're referring to, in power. Without a government making entry into the market so prohibitive the big guys would be at less of an advantage. Without Congress making laws to benefit their corporate benefactors like big ag subsidies and no-bid military contracts, they would have to sell their wares at a fair price to willing consumers like everyone else. Capitalism isn't the problem -- Government is.
Your social credit monetary system with "books" sounds like a nightmare. A free market in currency would be preferable. In a free market, nobody would buy into the fiat money produced by the Federal Reserve. They would prefer hard currencies like gold and silver and they would diversify so fluctuations wouldn't affect them so much.
I think we're so inundated with government intrusions into our lives regulations, confiscations, obfuscation and Alberto Gonzalez that we've as a group decided we can't do anything. I also think that the statists are starting to get a little to comfortable about the rate at which they are turning up the heat and the frogs are gonna start jumping from the proverbial kettle. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 9:54:12 AM | OP:
The only way this could be achieved is if every single person on the planet was completely selfless and ethical.
Or take it to the other extreme, completely selfish & unethical. That wouldn't be a society I'd want to live in tho, and it'd probably be shortlived.
Msg #2:
The goal of justice is to codify what are natural laws into a social code.
I'm not sure ( and haven't been convinced) there are any "natural laws". There are laws of nature ( tho of similar name, they are 2 different things). | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 10:25:36 AM |
I'm not sure ( and haven't been convinced) there are any "natural laws"
I suggest reading up on natural law (which is distinctly different from the laws of nature). To put it in a nutshell, natural law is the source of all true law. All rational people know what is right and wrong and what is fair and what is not. This gives any moral agent an unwritten "code" of natural law to live by. In the sense that all rational moral agents would agree on what is right, wrong, just and unjust, we all agree on abiding by certain unwritten rules. To put it simply, the jurisdiction of natural law is the community of moral agents who agree by the unwritten contract of "belonging" to abide by the universal principles of natural law, which in its simplest expression, that you have the right to do anything you please, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. By the principles of natural justice, if you don't respect the rights of others and harm them, you are in breach of contract and have therefore lost at least some, if not all of your rights.
For example: We all know it would be wrong to kill someone simply because you don't like them, so there is no "right to murder" for anyone. If someone does murder, he has proven himself a danger to society and its enemy and as he has violated someone's right to life unjustly, he no longer has a right to life and may be justly killed. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 10:43:45 AM |
To put it in a nutshell, natural law is the source of all true law. All rational people know what is right and wrong and what is fair and what is not. This gives any moral agent an unwritten "code" of natural law to live by.
For example: We all know it would be wrong to kill someone simply because you don't like them, so there is no "right to murder" for anyone.
So a new born baby knows from birth what's right & what's wrong, and that murder is wrong? What's your evidence for that? Babies are raised and are taught the difference between right & wrong ( as defined by the society they grow up in).
By the principles of natural justice, if you don't respect the rights of others and harm them, you are in breach of contract and have therefore lost at least some, if not all of your rights.
I think what you mean is "by the standards of that society you were ( or were supposed to be) raised with a solid basis of what's right & what's wong ( in thatparticular society). Natural justice is a feel-good meaningless phrase. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 1:19:43 PM |
So a new born baby knows from birth what's right & what's wrong, and that murder is wrong? What's your evidence for that?
The baby is not a moral agent, however it is in the nature of any species to reproduce and protect the young from harm. The baby is the responsibility of the parents, who ARE moral agents and have a moral obligation to the child until such time as the child reaches full moral agency. That obligation extends to the society in which they live, as they become responsible for the behaviour of their child until the child reaches adulthood.
Natural justice is a feel-good meaningless phrase.
I'm unfamiliar with the term "natural justice"; there is no justice in nature, so I suspect you were referring to "natural law", which is by no means a meaningless phrase. It is the foundation of all true law.
I can't let it go by though, that you thought it meaningless. what could be more meaningless than a few scribbles on a piece of paper. How can something be called "law" just because somebody wrote it down and called it that? I have nothing but contempt for most of the written laws, because many are not just at all. If they are not just, they are not legitimate law. Written law MUST conform to natural law to have any legitimacy at all. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 1:48:16 PM |
I have nothing but contempt for most of the written laws, because many are not just at all. If they are not just, they are not legitimate law. Written law MUST conform to natural law to have any legitimacy at all.
And what is the definition of "natural law" ? Survival of the fittest? That's certainly "natural", but then if we did have written law conform with natural law then for starters a lot of babies would be euthanized if they were born severe physical or mental disabilities. Some people get stung by a wasp & go into anaphelactic shock; that's natural. Guess we better not adminster the antidote that was developed in the laboratory..that wouldn't be natural.
Just what do you mean by "natural law" ?
The baby is the responsibility of the parents, who ARE moral agents and have a moral obligation to the child until such time as the child reaches full moral agency. That obligation extends to the society in which they live, as they become responsible for the behaviour of their child until the child reaches adulthood.
Correct. The child MUST be educated as to what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour. They are not born with the knowledge hence it isn't "natural law". Their moral guidance is educated into them by their parents, society, schools, etc. And any given morality is a product of it's society. The rules will differ from culture to culture, so they aren't "natural laws".
I can't let it go by though, that you thought it meaningless. what could be more meaningless than a few scribbles on a piece of paper.
It isn't the scribbling that would be meaningless, it's what the scribbling means. The term "natural law" is meaningless. | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 3:35:31 PM |
Just what do you mean by "natural law" ?
The term "natural law" is meaningless.
I already told you you should look it up. Talking about it without knowing what it is, is the height of ignorance. At least read the the article in the following URL; then you can get back to me with your thoughts on natural law.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/natlaw.htm | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 4:23:21 PM | BTW, I looked up "natural justice", and there is a definition for it, which logically conforms to principles of natural law, so I also favour natural justice for that reason:
http://www.duhaime.org/LegalDictionary/N/NaturalJustice.aspx
The concept of natural justice shows the existing statutory legal system up for the sham that it is! Those courts are corporations, which are employed by the government, which makes the Judge adjudicating a case an employee and connected to the government and therefore an interested party. This creates a clear conflict of interest, in any case before him in which the government is one of the parties of the dispute.
So much for justice in a court of statutory "law"! | |
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| Is it even possible to have a free society?
Posted: 9/15/2009 4:48:37 PM |
I already told you you should look it up. Talking about it without knowing what it is, is the height of ignorance. At least read the the article in the following URL; then you can get back to me with your thoughts on natural law.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/n/natlaw.htm
I visited the link. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.. OK, well when you can provide a link to a site dealing in a hard science such as biology that makes a case for natural law then it may have some credence. Philosophy isn't a hard science; it's doubtful it's any type of science.
The article itself states " The term "natural law" is ambiguous. It refers to a type of moral theory, as well as to a type of legal theory, but the core claims of the two kinds of theory are logically independent. It does not refer to the laws of nature, the laws that science aims to describe." | |
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