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Post 200

Friday, August 17, 2007 - 4:55pmSanction this postReply
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I certainly wouldn't want to voluntarily pay taxes in those states or any others under the present sociological conditions. My taxes would be applied to social programs that I totally disagree with. My support of voluntary contributions go only as far as supporting a minimal state. I think such a proposal would be a total disaster. If I wouldn't contribute, why would anyone else less committed contribute? ( Maybe idealistic altruists, but how does that further objectivist goals?)
Sam, in order for your contribution to be truly voluntary, you should be able to earmark it for those government functions that you approve of. Otherwise, the state is using your money against your wishes, in which case, your contribution is not (entirely) voluntary. If you could earmark your contribution, then you would be making a truly voluntary contribution.

And why shouldn't you be able to? If you can vote for certain policies, then why can't you vote with your money by earmarking it for those policies? It would seem that true democracy -- true "rule by the people" -- would allow for that, which would be an extension of the principle of "self-rule" that our politicians pay lip service to, but decline to practice.

- Bill


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Post 201

Friday, August 17, 2007 - 6:00pmSanction this postReply
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Bill:

John, you still haven't answered my question. Do you agree with Rand's view of rights or not?


Yes but I'm not interested in being tricked into some syllogistic contradiction. Every thing Rand said was not devoid of its context as you also make an exception for "dire emergencies". That you are able to make a specific context for defining man's rights means we allow for them.

Secondly, I did not say that we have the right to be free from any kind of force. I said that we have the right to be free from the initiation of force, not from retaliatory force.

As for arresting someone, the police must have proof that he's a bona fide suspect -- they must have evidence sufficient to suspect him of the crime. Otherwise, he's presumed innocent of reasonable suspicion, in which case, the police have no right to arrest or detain him. If they do, they are initiating force against him.


So how is it that the suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? It seems you make contextual distinctions here about the application of retaliatory force (which so do I). In one instance you say as long as you are reasonably suspected of a crime but not proven to have committed a crime, it is ok to use force. I completely agree with this. Obviously not all types of retaliatory force are the same and they are to be used appropriately given the specific context of reality we are discussing. It would be wrong to arrest someone of a crime even with reasonable suspicion and then deny them a trial. We would agree with that because we are saying this isn't a reasonable application of retaliatory force. So obviously we can sit here and discuss what is or isn't reasonable uses of retaliatory force, and we most certainly have disagreements over the concretes of when this principle applies and doesn't apply. Right?

I originally wrote:

Can we for example trust a private militia that answers to their customers to effectively quarantine an outbreak of a deadly and highly communicable disease?


To which you respond:

Yes. If the people carrying the disease are a threat to their customers, then we can trust the competing agencies to do a better job of protecting their customers than a public agency would do; if the competing agencies fail, they must answer to their customers and will lose business. If the government's monopoly fails, what other recourse do people have, when the government is the only show in town? As you well know, governments are notoriously inefficient in whatever they do, whether it's defending people's rights or protecting their health.


Really? We can trust the private militia to quarantine the customers against their will to which pay for this militia? I mean do you seriously believe a private militia could objectively apply retaliatory force while answering to the subjective whims of their customers' demands, whether those demands be reasonable or not? Their customers are the ones having forced used against them. If they have the ability to drop one militia and hire another you can't expect any kind of objectivity to the application of retaliatory force. Just because the free market is efficient in producing widgets, it doesn't mean every widget is objectively good. And likewise farming out every aspect of retaliatory force to the subjective desires of the consumer will not result in a fair application of retaliatory force. There will always be the demand for a customer's subjective idea of justice, and the desire for that privately hired militia to meet the demands of that customer, whether the customer's idea of justice is valid or not.

The only time it is legitimate to initiate force is an emergency in which one's own life depends on it, since one's life is one's highest value. The government cannot do it on behalf of others, and certainly not as a matter of public policy in order to defend people's rights. It makes no sense to violate rights in order to defend people's rights from being violated, which is a contradiction in terms.


So while it is a contradiction for government to do this, it is not a contradiction for an individual to initiate force in an emergency in which one's own life depends on it? What's good for one is not good for the other? Why?

What it means to violate someone's rights is to initiate force against him. Even if you initiate force in an emergency to save your own life, you still owe the victim compensation.


And likewise, so too must the government.

If you quarantine someone who has a deadly communicable disease, you are not initiating force against him if, without being quarantined, he would expose others to his disease. By exposing others, it is he who would be initiating force against them. You, therefore, have a right to prevent him from doing so by quarantining him, in which case, you're using retaliatory force, not the initiation of force.


You can't effectively quarantine a geographical infected area without inadvertently quarantining some people who do not have the disease. It is an impossibility in that scenario to distinguish who has the deadly communicable disease and who doesn't until tests can be conducted. In that case you are presuming everyone to be guilty until proven innocent. The purpose of quarantine is to stop individuals from assaulting others with their highly deadly communicable disease, even if it means some may fall victim to that disease within that quarantine who have not been infected yet. It's not a contradiction because failure to take action of quarantine will result in the deaths of so many more people, and those that are not infected yet in that quarantine area do not have the right to endanger the rest of the country. It is in an individual's rational self-interest to see it is better for them to live under a government that has that power than under one that doesn't.

And finally, just to address the increduilty that I would prefer to reserve judgement to see if voluntary taxes would effectively protect man's rights, I am operating from what I experience today in my life. Right now my life is relatively peaceful and tranquil. I am wealthy, I have a large home, and while I abhor some of my taxes going to pay for needless welfare programs I don't feel the same when it pays for the American military and my local and state police and courts. The fact that relatively speaking my life is peaceful and tranquil would suggest the burden of proof here is not on me to say voluntary taxes will not work, the burden of proof is on others who say my life would still be relatively peaceful and tranquil under a system of no compulsory taxes. Don't act like I'm way out of left field for remaining a little skeptical people would still pay for a 500 billion dollar a year Army. Like I said I think it's worth trying only for the fact it really has never been tried before. But the burden of proof is on the people who advocate something that has never been tried before ever in the history of mankind concerning the funding of force protection, in a country today with little to no threat of foreign invasion with a fair amount of peace and tranquility for the individual, it's a hard argument to accept it is a given fact voluntary taxation will be better. Maybe it is, I don't know and neither do I think anyone else on this forum does either.

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Post 202

Friday, August 17, 2007 - 6:39pmSanction this postReply
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Bill:
Sam, in order for your contribution to be truly voluntary, you should be able to earmark it for those government functions that you approve of. Otherwise, the state is using your money against your wishes, in which case, your contribution is not (entirely) voluntary. If you could earmark your contribution, then you would be making a truly voluntary contribution.
 It would be virtually impossible to disentangle yourself from the thousands upon thousands of government programs. Suppose you're opposed to government pork and there's pork for funding a bridge in your state and you have refused to earmark this kind of expenditure, on principle. Are you going to be forbidden to use this bridge? Suppose you're against a program to discourage tobacco smoking. There are those who will say that you're benefitting from it anyway because you'll not be subjected to as much second-hand smoke  ... and so on and so on. It's not just entitlement programs that would be involved.

I think it's not doable.

Sam


Post 203

Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 1:21amSanction this postReply
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I wrote, "John, you still haven't answered my question. Do you agree with Rand's view of rights or not?" He replied,
Yes but I'm not interested in being tricked into some syllogistic contradiction.
Then you don't have a clue on what her view of rights actually is. It might help to sit down and actually read what she had to say on the subject.
Every thing Rand said was not devoid of its context as you also make an exception for "dire emergencies".
No, but her context is very clearly spelled out in her essay, "The Ethics of Emergencies" in The Virtue of Selfishness. She also discussed this issue with Gerald Goodman of Columbia University in 1960, in a radio interview entitled "Morality and Why Man Requires It." Goodman asked her the following question about the ethics of emergencies: "Supposing you are washed ashore after a shipwreck, and there is a locked house which is not yours, but you're starving and you might die the next moment, and there is food in this house, what is your moral behavior?" She answered as follows:
"I would say again, this is an emergency situation, and please consult my article 'The Ethics Of Emergencies' in _The Virtue Of Selfishness_ for a fuller discussion of this subject.

"But to state the issue in brief, I would say that you would have the right to break in and eat the food that you need, and then when you reach the nearest policeman, admit what you have done, and undertake to repay the man when you are able to work. In other words, you may, in an emergency situation, save your life, but not as "of right." You would regard it as an emergency, and then, still recognizing the property right of the owner, you would restitute whatever you have taken, and that would be moral on both parts."
For the rest of the interview as it applies to this issue, see: http://www.jeffcomp.com/faq/murder.html

Observe that Rand regards the above example as an emergency in which your life is at stake, not a normal social context. She would not, therefore, have agreed with you on the right of the government to tax its citizens.

In fact, she says as much in her essay, "Government Financing in a Free Society," in which she writes:
"What would be the proper method of financing the government in a fully free society?"

This question usually asked in connection with the Objectivist principle that the government of a free society may not initiate the use of physical force and may use force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use. Since the imposition of taxes does represent an initiation of force, how, it is asked, would the government of a free country raise the money needed to finance its proper services?

In a fully free society, taxation -- or, to be exact, payment for governmental services -- would be voluntary. Since the proper services of a government -- the police, the armed forces, the law courts -- are demonstrably needed by individual citizens and affect their interests directly, the citizens would (and should) be willing to pay for such services, as they pay for insurance.
I wrote, "Secondly, I did not say that we have the right to be free from any kind of force. I said that we have the right to be free from the initiation of force, not from retaliatory force.

"As for arresting someone, the police must have proof that he's a bona fide suspect -- they must have evidence sufficient to suspect him of the crime. Otherwise, he's presumed innocent of reasonable suspicion, in which case, the police have no right to arrest or detain him. If they do, they are initiating force against him."
So how is it that the suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?
Because, unlike the arresting officers, a jury is capable of judging him guilty or not guilty through careful deliberation and with much greater access to evidence, so the defendant has a right to be convicted only if his guilt is ascertained beyond a reasonable doubt. Obviously, the arresting officers are not capable of rendering a final verdict, given their limited information, but they must nevertheless be able to arrest a suspect, otherwise the courts couldn't render a verdict with the suspect in custody, or incarcerate him if he is found guilty.
It seems you make contextual distinctions here about the application of retaliatory force (which so do I). In one instance you say as long as you are reasonably suspected of a crime but not proven to have committed a crime, it is ok to use force. I completely agree with this. Obviously not all types of retaliatory force are the same and they are to be used appropriately given the specific context of reality we are discussing. It would be wrong to arrest someone of a crime even with reasonable suspicion and then deny them a trial. We would agree with that because we are saying this isn't a reasonable application of retaliatory force. So obviously we can sit here and discuss what is or isn't reasonable uses of retaliatory force, and we most certainly have disagreements over the concretes of when this principle applies and doesn't apply. Right?
Well, yes, but you're saying that the initiation of force is proper even against people who are not suspected of any crime and who haven't been identified as initiating force.
I originally wrote:

Can we for example trust a private militia that answers to their customers to effectively quarantine an outbreak of a deadly and highly communicable disease? To which you respond:
Yes. If the people carrying the disease are a threat to their customers, then we can trust the competing agencies to do a better job of protecting their customers than a public agency would do; if the competing agencies fail, they must answer to their customers and will lose business. If the government's monopoly fails, what other recourse do people have, when the government is the only show in town? As you well know, governments are notoriously inefficient in whatever they do, whether it's defending people's rights or protecting their health.
Really? We can trust the private militia to quarantine the customers against their will to which pay for this militia? I mean do you seriously believe a private militia could objectively apply retaliatory force while answering to the subjective whims of their customers' demands, whether those demands be reasonable or not?
They're not answering to the subjective whims of their customers' demands. They're governed by objective rules of evidence and procedure and operate under the government's rules and regulations.
Their customers are the ones having forced used against them. If they have the ability to drop one militia and hire another you can't expect any kind of objectivity to the application of retaliatory force.
Why not? People hire private investigators to solve cases for them and there is no issue there regarding their objectivity. One of the most famous private eyes of all time is the legendary Jay J. Armes, who solved kidnapping cases for wealthy celebrities that the police and FBI were unable to solve. He was a real-life James Bond, a black-belt in karate, who had an arsenal of weapons, a fast car equipped with a rear mounted closed-circuit TV camera, revolving license plates and full-range communications equipment, along with a private helicopter and a 20,000 volt electrified fence along his property protecting him from his enemies, as several attempts had been made on his life by the criminal underworld. If his clients didn't like him, they were free to find another P.I., but that didn't compromise his objectivity; if anything, it made him more dedicated and more efficient.
Just because the free market is efficient in producing widgets, it doesn't mean every widget is objectively good. And likewise farming out every aspect of retaliatory force to the subjective desires of the consumer will not result in a fair application of retaliatory force. There will always be the demand for a customer's subjective idea of justice, and the desire for that privately hired militia to meet the demands of that customer, whether the customer's idea of justice is valid or not.
The point you're overlooking is that these private agencies would have to follow the government's rules and regulations; otherwise, they'd be arrested and prosecuted for violating the law, just as rogue cops are today.

I wrote, "The only time it is legitimate to initiate force is an emergency in which one's own life depends on it, since one's life is one's highest value. The government cannot do it on behalf of others, and certainly not as a matter of public policy in order to defend people's rights. It makes no sense to violate rights in order to defend people's rights from being violated, which is a contradiction in terms."
So while it is a contradiction for government to do this, it is not a contradiction for an individual to initiate force in an emergency in which one's own life depends on it? What's good for one is not good for the other? Why?
Because the starving individual who is stealing food in order to survive is not stealing money in order to defend people against having their money stolen, which is a contradiction in terms.

I wrote, "What it means to violate someone's rights is to initiate force against him. Even if you initiate force in an emergency to save your own life, you still owe the victim compensation."
And likewise, so too must the government.
But weren't you saying that the government has the right to steal people's money as a matter of public policy in order to finance its activities? Are you now saying that the government must pay the money back?? That doesn't make any sense, John!

I wrote, "If you quarantine someone who has a deadly communicable disease, you are not initiating force against him if, without being quarantined, he would expose others to his disease. By exposing others, it is he who would be initiating force against them. You, therefore, have a right to prevent him from doing so by quarantining him, in which case, you're using retaliatory force, not the initiation of force."
You can't effectively quarantine a geographical infected area without inadvertently quarantining some people who do not have the disease. It is an impossibility in that scenario to distinguish who has the deadly communicable disease and who doesn't until tests can be conducted. In that case you are presuming everyone to be guilty until proven innocent.
Not really. You wouldn't have the right to quarantine the area in the first place, if you didn't already have sufficient proof that a substantial portion of the population in the area were infected and that others who have yet to show any symptoms could also be.
The purpose of quarantine is to stop individuals from assaulting others with their highly deadly communicable disease, even if it means some may fall. It's not a contradiction because failure to take action of quarantine will result in the deaths of so many more people, and those that are not infected yet in that quarantine area do not have the right to endanger the rest of the country. It is in an individual's rational self-interest to see it is better for them to live under a government that has that power than under one that doesn't.
Right, and the government that I favor would have that power.
And finally, just to address the increduilty that I would prefer to reserve judgement to see if voluntary taxes would effectively protect man's rights, I am operating from what I experience today in my life. Right now my life is relatively peaceful and tranquil. I am wealthy, I have a large home, and while I abhor some of my taxes going to pay for needless welfare programs I don't feel the same when it pays for the American military and my local and state police and courts. The fact that relatively speaking my life is peaceful and tranquil would suggest the burden of proof here is not on me to say voluntary taxes will not work, the burden of proof is on others who say my life would still be relatively peaceful and tranquil under a system of no compulsory taxes. Don't act like I'm way out of left field for remaining a little skeptical people would still pay for a 500 billion dollar a year Army. Like I said I think it's worth trying only for the fact it really has never been tried before. But the burden of proof is on the people who advocate something that has never been tried before ever in the history of mankind concerning the funding of force protection, in a country today with little to no threat of foreign invasion with a fair amount of peace and tranquility for the individual, it's a hard argument to accept it is a given fact voluntary taxation will be better. Maybe it is, I don't know and neither do I think anyone else on this forum does either.
Better by what standard? By the standard of respect for people's rights? Absolutely, if you hold, as Rand does, that taxation is theft. The fact that your life might be less peaceful than it is now if government theft were abolished does not justify your continuing the practice. Other people's lives and property are not yours to dispose of.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you were a wealthy slave owner, and that emancipation might negatively impact your lifestyle and cause you to be less well off than you are now. Would you be justified in placing the burden of proof on those who advocate freeing the slaves, because it's hard for you to accept that a free labor market will be better? Of course, you wouldn't. Then why do you think you're justified in placing the burden on those who advocate freeing the taxpayers on the grounds that it's hard for you to accept that voluntary taxation will be better? That voluntary taxation is "better" is proved by the fact that respecting people's rights for the sake of protecting them is better than violating people's rights for the sake of protecting them, which is proved by the fact that moral integrity is better than moral hypocrisy.

- Bill



Post 204

Saturday, August 18, 2007 - 10:02amSanction this postReply
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I wrote, "Sam, in order for your contribution to be truly voluntary, you should be able to earmark it for those government functions that you approve of. Otherwise, the state is using your money against your wishes, in which case, your contribution is not (entirely) voluntary. If you could earmark your contribution, then you would be making a truly voluntary contribution."
It would be virtually impossible to disentangle yourself from the thousands upon thousands of government programs. Suppose you're opposed to government pork and there's pork for funding a bridge in your state and you have refused to earmark this kind of expenditure, on principle. Are you going to be forbidden to use this bridge?
I doubt it. If the principle of voluntary taxation were already accepted, people would probably be allowed to use goods and services like bridges and public transport, while being charged tolls and user fees. Hopefully, under this kind of voluntarist system, private corporations would be allowed to build infrastructure like roads and bridges and charge their own user fees.
Suppose you're against a program to discourage tobacco smoking. There are those who will say that you're benefitting from it anyway because you'll not be subjected to as much second-hand smoke ... and so on and so on.
They might, but then they'd be against voluntary financing, wouldn't they? -- in which case, you wouldn't have it to begin with.
It's not just entitlement programs that would be involved.
I agree, but in a true democracy, people not only have the right to decide how their tax money is spent; they also have a right to decide how much of it should be spent on a particular good or service. If they think too much of it is being earmarked for defense spending and not enough for police services, shouldn't they have a right to allocate their money accordingly? They should if what we have is a government by consent of the governed, according to which the government is not the ruler, but the servant or agent of the citizens and has no rights except those delegated to it by its citizens for a specific purpose.

- Bill

Post 205

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 12:06amSanction this postReply
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To Ted- I am a new poster here.  I can assure you that this photo is real, and was taken in a refugee camp.  There were people all around him.  He was trying to wake up the fat white folks to what is really happening in the world. 

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Post 206

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 6:27amSanction this postReply
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There are local political paradigms based on force only, and there are local political paradigms based on trade/commerce governed by force.   In the former, a tiny handful of thug warlords/dictators/old men in robes climb their way to the top of the local steaming pile of not doing so well pile of humanity and lay claim to the not so maggoty pieces of rotting meat.   They maintain their positions of local power by force and they stave off revolution by instructing an ignorant population that the cause of their endless plight are evil forces over the horizon: capitaleeeeesm, colonialism, global trade, Brittany Spears, Disneyland, The Great Satan. 

The local political paradigms based on trade/commerce governed by force are doing much better, where better is defined as minimizing the number of such photo ops locally.    So much better that out of and beyond the slop they have created something that the universe abhors: massive gradient.

As a rule, the Universe generally acts to ameliorate all gradients, and it isn't always pretty.  Throw a rapidly moving egg against a stationary wall, see what I mean.   In such shodowns of gradient, it isn't always the wall that ends up moving, and 'pretty' is something that mankind values; the Universe just is what it is.   We are living during a time of collision between modernity and antiquity, yet are largely clueless, due to the nature of some of our successes.

Clueless because of the cumulative impact of past success, most of the West is largely unaware of what life is like in most of the rest of the world.  When given the chance to choose to take a ride in a jetliner, the destinations chosen are usually cherry picked world class cities or resorts, not the many more Hell holes that are available.

Zia International in Dhaka is a modern airport, with jetways.  Walking down those jetways, fresh from a flight from modern Singapore's glistening airport, one can be fooled into thinking that one is still in 'that' world, modernity, but only right up until the moment one exits the jetway.   Modernity only goes so far, and then it often ends abruptly, with little warning.  The end of the jetways at Zia stand at the boundary of one such definition of 'gradient.'  On the other side are endless 'photo ops.'  

If not prepared, such a journey can crack your psyche.  One moment, a nice woman on a copmfrptable modern airliner is asking you if you'd like a warm towel after your pecan crusted chicken, and a few moments later, you are standing in 8 inches of slop with your bags, lungs burning with every foul breath of polluted air, watching an 8 year old kid scramble under a rusty pile of RPM and broken boards in the same foul smelling slop, desperately figthing off the older, bigger kids while gobbling down some street vendor mystery meat that was miraculously tossed to him by an incredulous visitor.   The incredulous visitor was just trying to find a gracious way to turn down the offer of a filty street vendor mystery meat sandwhich that was just offered up to him by his host, and did not intend to start a melee over a scrap of food.   A Westerner holding his bags in 8 inches of slop outside of Zia better know not to let go of his bags to any of the waiting urchins urging to 'help' for tips, because they know to run in opposite directions if/when he is stupid enough to let go.   A Westerner witnessing bodies in rickshaws regularly flying through the air on overcrowded streets should not be surprised when his host is not surprised at all, nor be perplexed when the street crowds descend on the bodies of the victims, pummeling and dragging them off the street for the crime of not getting out of the way of a 2 and a half ton truck, obeying the only traffic law in existence locally: the biggest vehicle always goes where it wants.  A Westerner on a domestic flight should not be surprised when the 'stewardess' screams, cajoles, and literally beats (pecan-less) live chicken carrying passengers into an ancient British ATP turboprop foul with green mold and mildew, nor look for any warm towels or pecan crusted anything, but should pray instead that enough modernity yet remains to safely convey the aging magic silver bird for one more poorly maintained flight.  A Westerner should instead comfort his bug-eyed scared to death host and assure him that no, there probably aren't parachutes in the overheads; that is where they keep the chickens.   A Westerner should not be surprised when witnessing a simple act of local daily 'commerce', characterized as, a bigger man outshouting and out threatening a smaller man into submission, with no money ever exchanged.  A Westerner should not be surprised when his host tells him that tomorrow would be best time to hide in the hotel, and not be seen;  the usual armed navy escort would be insufficient.  A religious Hartal was being called, the country would be shut down, and there would be no acceptable way to move any Westerners around the country.  The taxis and Cushmans will not be working, and the desperate rickshaw operators, finally with an opportunity to corner the local transportation market, will have themselves and their passengers murdered in the streets if caught by the local religious enforcment mobs.   What was at best a shaky power system is cut off for a day, and 24 hrs in a dark, way beyond moist to sloshing damp, mildewy, bug ridden best of the best hotels for Westerners, sweltering in the tropical heat, watching the mayhem in the streets below as indeed, those mobs of religious thugs are enforcing and asserting and establishing exactly who it is that factually runs the local dung heap, is a day spent educating oneself about life in much of the world.  The government 'forces' with their ancient bayonet tipped Enfields are for show; the old men in robes and their religious mobs run this dung heap, they are educating the folks, they are running the P.R. battle, and they for sure aren't instructing the folks they hold in thrall that any of this daily Hell is their fault.    This is clear.  And indeed, the papers dutifully report the enforcement carnage the next day, and the impotent vestiges of civil secular government dutifully print their statements of outrage, the show is complete.  So, on one last day, at the other end of another harrowing domestic chicken laden flight, where 'security' was an ancient Muslim woman , glaring from behind a black veil at a card table waving an electronic wand connected to an open battery case with the batteries obviously missing, just meters from that Zia international jetway back to modernity, when accosted by a detail of those bayonetted Enfield wielding with a request to 'accompany' them back to NHQ in Dhaka for some last minute Westerner squeezing, the Westerner should wonder who suddenly put them back in charge of anything.  "Don't worry, we'll get you back to Zia in time for your flight."  A Westerner, lungs still burning, images still seared, after finally making it back to modernity after 10 or so days of life in an insane asylum, should avoid the tempatation to deny the reality of what he just witnessed.  It is too easy, once safely back on the other side of that boundary jetway to modernity and our endless Disneyland existence to deny what one just witnessed.  Was that real?  Was that a bad dream?   Or is that 24/7/365 for much of the world? 

Then, of what impact is a 'photo' or PBS documentary or other change the channel journalism on our perception of the rest of the world?

Or, we can choose to go to 'Beaches' in Turks&Caicos for an all inclusive, and call it a day.

Might as well be life from another planet.   This gradient may be intractable, but it will work itself out.  In this Universe, they all do, one way or the other.

regards,
Fred


Post 207

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 9:18amSanction this postReply
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Fred, I love your descriptions - reminds me of "Holidays in Hell" by PJ O'Rourke

Post 208

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 12:34pmSanction this postReply
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I originally wrote:

Their customers are the ones having forced used against them. If they have the ability to drop one militia and hire another you can't expect any kind of objectivity to the application of retaliatory force.


Bill responded:

Why not? People hire private investigators to solve cases for them and there is no issue there regarding their objectivity.


Private investigators do not employ force. They cannot punish a criminal or order the criminal to pay restitution to their client. You cannot farm out all means of retaliatory force to private entities and expect objectivity in the application of retaliatory force. I don't even think Rand agreed with you there.

They're not answering to the subjective whims of their customers' demands. They're governed by objective rules of evidence and procedure and operate under the government's rules and regulations.


Bill! With the threat of force by the government do they obey the government's rules and regulations. People don't just choose to abide by a piece of legislation because it's the right thing to do. They do so because the strong-arm of the government comes down on them and throws them in jail if they do not comply.

The point you're overlooking is that these private agencies would have to follow the government's rules and regulations; otherwise, they'd be arrested and prosecuted for violating the law, just as rogue cops are today.


By whom? Who shows up with the guns and the handcuffs and in what jail do they get thrown into? A different private agency? And why should they listen to the commands of their government to arrest another agency? What's the government going to do to that third party agency that refuses to comply, scold them and tell them they're being very bad boys? And who compensates that third party agency to arrest the rogue agency? And how do you envision that scenario going down where a small Army has control over an area that is told to stand down and give up their arms because they are violating the rules and regulations set forth by the government?
(Edited by John Armaos on 8/24, 12:36pm)


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Post 209

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 2:15pmSanction this postReply
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John Armaos wrote: "Their customers are the ones having forced used against them. If they have the ability to drop one militia and hire another you can't expect any kind of objectivity to the application of retaliatory force."

I replied, "Why not? People hire private investigators to solve cases for them and there is no issue there regarding their objectivity."

John replied,
Private investigators do not employ force.
Oh yes, they do! Read the biography of Jay J. Armes.
They cannot punish a criminal or order the criminal to pay restitution to their client.
Neither can the government's police. I never said that private law enforcement agencies could arbitrarily mete out punishment or force a criminal to pay restitution. Only after the courts hand down a decision mandating a certain form of punishment or restitution, can the police enforce it.
You cannot farm out all means of retaliatory force to private entities and expect objectivity in the application of retaliatory force. I don't even think Rand agreed with you there.
I thought I explained that private police, like government police, would be bound by the government's laws and regulation governing the use of retaliatory force. So, who's talking about farming out all means of retaliatory force to private entities?

I wrote, "[Private police are] not answering to the subjective whims of their customers' demands. They're governed by objective rules of evidence and procedure and operate under the government's rules and regulations."
Bill! With the threat of force by the government do they obey the government's rules and regulations. People don't just choose to abide by a piece of legislation because it's the right thing to do. They do so because the strong-arm of the government comes down on them and throws them in jail if they do not comply.
And who strong-arms the government's police when they violate the law? Answer: Other police. But at some point, whoever are the enforcers of final authority must be willing to respect the law on their own. The buck must stop somewhere. You cannot have an endless chain of enforcers who enforce the enforcers, etc. ad infinitum.

I wrote, "The point you're overlooking is that these private agencies would have to follow the government's rules and regulations; otherwise, they'd be arrested and prosecuted for violating the law, just as rogue cops are today."
By whom? Who shows up with the guns and the handcuffs and in what jail do they get thrown into?
Who shows up to arrest the rogue cops? Other cops. It's the same under a system of private police. The cops who show up would belong to whatever agency the victims hired to protect them. The victim's police would be authorized by the government (through a court order) to arrest the cops who violated the law. And upon their conviction, the perpetrators would be sent to a prison that is regulated according to the government's guidelines.
A different private agency? And why should they listen to the commands of their government to arrest another agency?
For the same reason that the police today adhere to the government's laws and regulations: out of respect for its legal institutions.
What's the government going to do to that third party agency that refuses to comply, scold them and tell them they're being very bad boys?
No, private police who are already committed to enforcing the government's laws would arrest them.
And who compensates that third party agency to arrest the rogue agency?
The clients of the agency that's defending them.
And how do you envision that scenario going down where a small Army has control over an area that is told to stand down and give up their arms because they are violating the rules and regulations set forth by the government?
Why do you assume that there would be no private police to oppose this kind of criminal gang? Wouldn't the gang's victims call their respective agencies to come to their defense? Besides, an even worse problem can occur under a governmental monopoly on law enforcement -- military coups and dictatorships, which are commonplace in Latin America. These could happen here as well, but they're unlikely, because of the respect that Americans generally have for the rule of law and due process.

- Bill

(Edited by William Dwyer on 8/24, 2:17pm)


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Post 210

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 4:25pmSanction this postReply
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Bill:

I thought I explained that private police, like government police, would be bound by the government's laws and regulation governing the use of retaliatory force. So, who's talking about farming out all means of retaliatory force to private entities?


But the private police cannot objectively apply the government's rule of law if they have to answer to the subjective whims of their customers. And if the government itself does not have its own police, its own army, to which do not answer to any customers but only to answer to the Constitution and to the laws passed by that government, you can't get an objective application of the government's laws. The same reason in science when one group of scientists collect the data, another group conducts the experiment, and yet another group interprets the data from that experiment, only then can you expect to achieve a reasonable level of objectivity. In government, one arm of government collects the funds, another one distributes it, and yet another one spends it. One does not have total control over the other. Look if a customer pays Police agency A to protect their rights, then Police agency A has the desire to fulfill the wishes and desires of their customer whether those desires be a reasonable and fair application of due process or not.



I never said that private law enforcement agencies could arbitrarily mete out punishment or force a criminal to pay restitution. Only after the courts hand down a decision mandating a certain form of punishment or restitution, can the police enforce it.


So you're saying the police be privately funded and people should have a choice with which police agency to protect their rights, but the courts not be privately funded and people not have a choice to which court they would like to be subject to? I don't understand your position. Why would it be in one case that you are not entitled to the government's labor for police protection, but in another you are entitled to the government's labor for a court decision? Who funds the courts? Who pays the judge? Are we saying only one branch of government be operated through private entities?

So, who's talking about farming out all means of retaliatory force to private entities?


I thought Bill that was implicit in your argument when you said people do not have a right to the government's labor. But it seems you are saying this only applies to the Executive Branch. Otherwise your position is completely confusing to me.

And who strong-arms the government's police when they violate the law? Answer: Other police.


Yes Bill, other police not privately funded who answer to the Constitution and the courts. Those police don't sit down with a citizen, have them sign a contract and agree for services to be rendered. Due process also entails how the police use arrest and detainment powers, it doesn't just entail the court proceeding. You still have the overwhelming desire by privately funded police to answer to the subjective whims of their customers. And if the privately funded police don't like the court's decision because it doesn't fulfill the wishes of their customers, who in their right mind would think that police agency would then turn around and enforce the decision of the court?

I originally wrote:

What's the government going to do to that third party agency that refuses to comply, scold them and tell them they're being very bad boys?


To which you wrote:

No, private police who are already committed to enforcing the government's laws would arrest them.


What do you mean committed to enforcing the government's laws? They are committed to making a profit Bill. And if they have the guns and the people (the government) that is telling them to comply do not have the guns, why would they listen? This makes zero sense to me.

I originally wrote:

And who compensates that third party agency to arrest the rogue agency?


To which you respond:

The clients of the agency that's defending them.


Well which clients Bill? The clients of the third party agency or the clients who have had their rights infringed by the rogue agency? If it's the clients of the rogue agency then two reasons why this defies all common sense.

1) The clients may have had all their money looted and can't afford the price levied to them by the third party police agency.

2) The clients presumably did not ask Police Agency A to come to their rescue but was rather a demand made by the government (courts). So they did not agree to any price for their rescue.

If it's the clients of the third party that fund the rescue of the clients suffering from the rogue agency, why all of a sudden now the clients suffering from the rogue agency entitled to the labor of the third party police agency?

Why do you assume that there would be no private police to oppose this kind of criminal gang?


Because you have made the primary motive for retaliatory force to be a profitable venture and have risked the primary reason of it being a fair and objective application of due process. Justice simply isn't something that is profitable. Hunting down a criminal serial killer can entail monstrous costs. Taking on a criminal gang doesn't mean it is a profitable thing to do. If it's not profitable, you are not going to get a private police agency operating on a profit motive willing to take on the job.

Post 211

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 7:32pmSanction this postReply
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John Armaos wrote:
Justice simply isn't something that is profitable.
If something is not profitable then that means that the value of the resources expended is greater than the value of the result.

That way lies penury.

Post 212

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 11:42pmSanction this postReply
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Well said, Rick......  there is, even with justice, no such thing as intrinsic value - so there must be, to the valuer, an exchanging to that valued justice, so that both ends gain, else in and of itself there would not - could not - be justice......

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Post 213

Friday, August 24, 2007 - 11:47pmSanction this postReply
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I wrote, "I thought I explained that private police, like government police, would be bound by the government's laws and regulation governing the use of retaliatory force. So, who's talking about farming out all means of retaliatory force to private entities?"
But the private police cannot objectively apply the government's rule of law if they have to answer to the subjective whims of their customers. And if the government itself does not have its own police, its own army, which do not answer to any customers but only to the Constitution and to the laws passed by that government, you can't get an objective application of the government's laws.
Not true. There are many examples of private investigators and private police operating today, who have full arrest powers and are permitted to exercise their own discretion in arresting suspects, and who do a much better job of finding and apprehending criminals than the police do. If a client's rights are violated, he wants the real perpetrator arrested, not just anyone who might look suspicious. If the police he hires arrest the wrong person, he's not going to be a satisfied customer; the real culprit is still out there. It is in his self-interest to have his agency apprehend the guilty party. If the agency's record of arrests involves too many acquittals, he will want to hire another agency. By the same token, if the agency's police are slow to respond to a crime scene, the client will also be inclined to look elsewhere.

Today, if the police are slow to respond to a complaint or are lax in solving a crime, there is no one else to turn to. There is no competition, no incentive, for the police to be competent or efficient.
The same reason in science when one group of scientists collect the data, another group conducts the experiment, and yet another group interprets the data from that experiment, only then can you expect to achieve a reasonable level of objectivity.
Which is why you strive for impartial judges and juries. Moreover, the process of arresting suspects and of gathering evidence would be regulated by the government. Private police would have to follow certain rules of protocol, and no doubt already do in the case of private detectives and private police who operate within our current system.
One does not have total control over the other. Look if a customer pays Police agency A to protect their rights, then Police agency A has the desire to fulfill the wishes and desires of their customer whether those desires be a reasonable and fair application of due process or not.
If the police violate due process (as they occasionally due under our own system), then they will be penalized. Today, the only thing that happens if the police violate due process in the gathering of evidence is that the evidence is thrown out, which is absurd. Cops should be penalized in other ways without sacrificing the evidence, and the penalty should be severe enough to discourage police misconduct.

I wrote, "I never said that private law enforcement agencies could arbitrarily mete out punishment or force a criminal to pay restitution. Only after the courts hand down a decision mandating a certain form of punishment or restitution, can the police enforce it."
So you're saying the police be privately funded and people should have a choice with which police agency to protect their rights, but the courts not be privately funded and people not have a choice to which court they would like to be subject to?
If both the plaintiff and defendant can agree on a court, then they can choose whichever one they like. If they cannot agree, then a disinterested third party can determine in which court a suspect is tried, to avoid any bias on the part of the plaintiff or defendant.
I don't understand your position. Why would it be in one case that you are not entitled to the government's labor for police protection, but in another you are entitled to the government's labor for a court decision?
There are no entitlements here -- either to the government's labor for police protection, to private police or to court hearings -- no more so than there are entitlements to any other good or service.
Who funds the courts? Who pays the judge? Are we saying only one branch of government be operated through private entities?
The government would have to certify a court's protocol. It would have to approve the court. You couldn't have a kangaroo court, for example, but the funding for the courts could come from the fees paid by clients to their respective agencies. The agencies would in turn pay for the services of arbitration and incarceration out of revenues received from their customers.

I wrote, "So, who's talking about farming out all means of retaliatory force to private entities?"
I thought, Bill, that was implicit in your argument when you said people do not have a right to the government's labor. But it seems you are saying this only applies to the Executive Branch. Otherwise your position is completely confusing to me.
When I said that you don't have a right to someone else's labor, I meant that you con't have an unconditional right to it. You don't have an unconditional right to the labor of a doctor and a nurse, if you are ill. Doctors and nurses aren't your slaves. But that doesn't mean that you won't get medical care if you pay for it or if someone else is willing to subsidize it. The same is true for police and legal services.

I wrote, "And who strong-arms the government's police when they violate the law? Answer: Other police."
Yes Bill, other police not privately funded who answer to the Constitution and the courts.
And other police who are privately funded and answer to the Constitution. The fact that police are privately funded does not mean that they aren't bound by the Constitution and due process.
Those police don't sit down with a citizen, have them sign a contract and agree for services to be rendered.
So what? Private police already exist who negotiate contracts for their services, which is perfectly consistent with the Constitution.
Due process also entails how the police use arrest and detainment powers, it doesn't just entail the court proceeding.
Yes, and that same due process would apply to how private police use their arrest and detainment powers.
You still have the overwhelming desire by privately funded police to answer to the subjective whims of their customers.
In what respect? They can't violate the law, just because their customers might want them to, any more than an attorney can lie in court or obstruct justice just because his client might want him to. If the police were to violate the law, they'd become criminals, lose their license, be fined and/or go to jail.
And if the privately funded police don't like the court's decision because it doesn't fulfill the wishes of their customers, who in their right mind would think that police agency would then turn around and enforce the decision of the court.
I don't follow you, John. Let's consider an example. Suppose that my house is robbed, and my own police arrest a suspect. It's in my self-interest that they arrest the right person, which also happens to accord with the requirements of justice, because that's whom I want to pay for the robbery, not some innocent person who didn't do it. Now, let's say that the case goes to trial, and the defendant, whom I thought was guilty, is acquitted. I'm not going to like it, because it will mean that my police probably arrested the wrong man. But in that case, since the defendant is free to go, there's nothing else for them to do. There's no further enforcement that my police need do or are allowed to do in that situation. Assume, however, that the defendant is found guilty. In that case, my police will deliver him to prison. Once he's in prison, their job is done. So, where's the problem?

John asked, "What's the government going to do to that third party agency that refuses to comply, scold them and tell them they're being very bad boys?" I replied, "No, private police who are already committed to enforcing the government's laws would arrest them."
What do you mean committed to enforcing the government's laws? They are committed to making a profit, Bill.
They're no more committed to making a profit by violating the law than bankers are committed to making a profit by defrauding their customers.
And if they have the guns and the people (the government) that is telling them to comply do not have the guns, why would they listen?
Because their potential victims have their own police, who would be authorized to pursue and arrest them if they behave as outlaws or as rogue cops.

John wrote, "And who compensates that third party agency to arrest the rogue agency?" I replied, "The clients of the agency that's defending them."
Well which clients Bill? The clients of the third party agency or the clients who have had their rights infringed by the rogue agency?
The client's (i.e., the victim's) agency would arrest the rogue police. I apologize for not making this clear. And since the victims would have paid for the protection, the compensation would already have been rendered.
Because you have made the primary motive for retaliatory force to be a profitable venture and have risked the primary reason of it being a fair and objective application of due process.
On the contrary, what is profitable is retaliatory force according to a fair and objective application of due process. Private police are not profiting off of retaliatory force to the exclusion of fairness and due process, but in accordance with fairness and due process.
Hunting down a criminal serial killer can entail monstrous costs.
What if the voters turn down a tax increase that the government thinks is necessary for their own protection. Can the government usurp the will of the people by imposing the tax increase on them anyway? If not, then why is the government allowed to force people to pay for protection that they're not willing to pay for voluntarily? Besides, if a lot of people want a serial killer apprehended, which they presumably would, then a lot of people would be willing to pay for his capture. Would they be willing to pay enough? Probably, but even if they weren't, that doesn't mean that government authorities have the right to force them to pay what the authorities think is enough!!!
Taking on a criminal gang doesn't mean it is a profitable thing to do.
Why not? Again, if the gang is a threat to a great many people, then a great many people will want it brought to justice, and will pay a lot of money for that purpose. But suppose they are not willing to pay a lot of money. What right does the government have to force them to pay? For the government to take people's money by force would make the government a criminal gang, and thus a hypocrite in its alleged fight against crime.

- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer on 8/24, 11:49pm)


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Post 214

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 12:26amSanction this postReply
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He was trying to wake up the fat white folks to what is really happening in the world.  (Alice Brady)

Do "fat white folks" ever get tired of the assumption that they're responsible for the welfare of everyone else on the planet?

Just curious.


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Post 215

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 7:52amSanction this postReply
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No idea - the fat white folk around here are the ones on welfare.......;-)

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Post 216

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 12:49pmSanction this postReply
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To what do we fat white folk need awakening?

Alice, so I can assume that some responsible organization or authority was protecting that girl's life since you assert that she was in a refugee camp? That the photographer had no reason to kill himself, since the people on the scene, acting in loco parentis, were protecting her rights and welfare? And that the refugee camp itself was, of course, run by humanitarians with food to distribute? Food that they would part with, unlike certain UN employees, without the promise of sexual favors in return? Or are you saying the we fat white folk need to be awakened to the nature of refugee camps run by non-fat non-white folk?

I am assuming that if there were such a humanitarian camp, it was fat white people who both funded and established it. I am also unaware of any refugee situations being caused by fat white folk in the last few decades, with the exceptions, perhaps, of Yugoslavia, (and except for the Milosevic's, the Yugoslavs were hardly fat) Chechnya, and the betrayals of the first and the ineptitudes of the second actions in Iraq. The blame for the former can be laid at the feet of Slavic strongmen using the historical terror of Jihad to cement their power; the blame for the latter can be laid at the feet of Colin Powell. You can let me know if he fits your idea of white or fat.

So, to what problems caused by us do we fat white folk need awakening?

(And are you Ann B. Davis posting here under a pseudonym, or the 1930's filmstar, known for her role in "The Gay Divorcee" who died at age 46 in 1939, by any chance?)

Ted Keer

(Pictured is a fat white harpy, not a vulture)


(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/25, 1:31pm)


Post 217

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 1:49pmSanction this postReply
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(And are you Ann B. Davis posting here under a pseudonym, or the 1930's filmstar, known for her role in "The Gay Divorcee" who died at age 46 in 1939, by any chance?)
Ted K.
I wondered about that, too.
"Alice Brady"... (what, did she manage to steal Mike away from Carol?)
:-)

Erica

(Of course, if that is in fact your real name, Alice...no disrespect intended.)


Post 218

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 2:06pmSanction this postReply
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LOL

Post 219

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 2:12pmSanction this postReply
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Actually, Alice on the Brady's was Alice Nelson, she was an employee, not a spinster aunt or chattel slave. The actress Alice Brady was quite a babe.

[Sorry, Erica, I misread you as asking if Alice had stolen away from Mike. My mikstake]

Ted
(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/25, 2:33pm)


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