Photo - child stalked by vulture

Yes, Ted, I knew that. (Hence the reference to Alice "stealing" Mike away...)

Nevermind.

Post 221

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 2:37pm

Erica, I misread you, and have edited post 219.

Ann B. Davis has always been a favorite of mine, especially for the fact that she walked away from Hollywood. Of all the original characters, she was the only one who could have reprised her role in the movies (which I love) without looking out of place as her "self."

Ted

Post 222

Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 7:38pm

LOL This thread has everything a girl could wish for ! :) Thank you!!

Post 223

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - 6:37pm

I originally wrote:

Justice simply isn't something that is profitable.

To which Rick Pasoto responded:

If something is not profitable then that means that the value of the resources expended is greater than the value of the result.

You anarcho-Capitalists have it confused. You can't have any kind of profitable business venture unless there is a reasonable expectation your rights will be secured. First comes the rule of law, then comes the free market. It's not the other way around. There is no such thing as having a value to anything if justice isn't first established in society.

Post 224

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - 7:56pm

"First comes the rule of law, then comes the free market."

Exactly, and then comes worrying about how to make the tax burden as voluntary and minimal as possible. To argue otherwise is historically ignorant and philosophically naive. While the voluntary tax society sits around eating tea and crumpets and debating Armaos' word choice when his meaning was clear, Tony Soprano will come a-knocking.

Ted Keer

(I think Rick was trying to be helpful here though - he hardly seems like an anarchist to me.)

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/26, 7:57pm)

Post 225

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - 8:37pm

John,

I've only followed the last several posts, but there's something subtle here which requires elaboration. You started this needed elaboration in post 193 when you said:

There can be [ ] intellectual distinctions between types of initiations of force, and the purpose and intent of those types of force.

It turns out that force is only a tool, a tool of value attainment. When force is used in a manner best suited for objective value attainment, then it is aimed at justice. This is why, before written law, others stood by and watched a victim dole out force against his aggressor -- because everyone understood that justice was being served (and everyone wanted justice). This is why, before written law, stone axes were placed in the hands of victims, and aggressors were cornered or knocked-down in order that they may be on the receiving end of their victim's retaliation. This is why, before I was even aware of the written law on the matter, I threatened my sister with physical force -- should she not return the garments which she had stolen from me.

So, when you say that justice (retaliatory force) isn't profitable, there has to be a qualifying caveat. Justice existed before written law, and true justice (sometimes referred to as "street justice") often even exists despite of some written laws (Aquinas spoke of unjust laws that we ought not obey). And, in a way, justice (retaliatory force) is profitable to humans, too. You alluded to this in post 223 -- when you were explaining how justice is required for a market to survive. I'm just narrowing down the scope to the individual, rather than the society (or market) -- to show how retaliatory force is of great value (i.e., profitable) to man. Straight-thinking victims (or even would-be victims) place high value on justice for their own rational and individualistic reason.

When you say that justice isn't profitable, then you seem to be saying that enforced retaliation (via a 3rd party) requires a net value input (rather than providing a net gain in value). In short, you seem to be saying that police are a 'necessary evil' -- a costly, but yet needed, service to society. The vaguary seems to hinge on the utilized sense of the term: profitable. It could mean the type of short-sighted and narrow-minded 'profit' that a looter seeks, or it could mean the understood value of justice to man. When taken in the second sense, then the funding of police just naturally flows from the values of rational folk. In this manner it's not a necessary evil, but an objective value sought.

Just as I have taken justice into my own hands (when I saw no alternative available), so I would be willing to place the enforcement of justice (i.e., the retaliation) into the hands of professionals -- better equipped with the task than myself. If enough folks are rational, then they'll get together and fund a singular police force. The alternative is to revert to jungle law and tribal warfare, which has not ever been -- nor will it ever be -- profitable for man.

I guess what I'm saying is that we don't require the persuasion of philosophers in ivory towers, in order to be "sold" on our funding a singular police force -- there is no selling required, there is no necessary evil, there's just one best way; and a bunch of folks who understand that. If someone were to say to me that they didn't want to fund a singular police force, then I'd let them know of the kind of retaliatory force that I'd be ready, willing, and able to dole out upon them -- should they ever cross me. If you can't get them to pay because of a simple love of what justice can do for man, then you strike fear into their hearts regarding what man can do to them (in the absence of objective justice).

;-)

If we were brought back to the rivalrous Stone Age, then justice would eventually thrive again (up to the historical level that it does now) -- because it is entailed by our very nature. Just look at the retaliatory sharing/not sharing of toys among kids, for evidence of this fact of reality. Humans will always have justice, or else they'd be lacking in their very humanity. It's natural and profitable -- just like every other philosophical tool utilized for the furtherance of human lives.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 8/26, 8:43pm)

Post 226

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - 8:40pm

Ted,

While I agree that Rick was trying to be helpful (bless his heart), he's no radical for (minarcho-)capitalism like Rand was -- I can assure you that.

Ed

Post 227

Sunday, August 26, 2007 - 9:36pm

A Republican Form of Government

I think the underlying misunderstanding is not whether justice is profitable in the sense of beneficial to man, but whether it provides the sort of return on investment - a profit margin - that motivates business investment. In this sense, would we say that poor neighborhoods which cannot attract private police forces to defend them based on a profit motive should be left without the rule of law because "forcing" others to defend them would require TAXATION or be unprofitable?

Of course, the government's resources are limited. A good executive (like Giuliani?) has to decide how to allocate public resources to fight crime. This is a very concrete technical matter, but I am sure everyone gets the point. Giuliani didn't say, well, tax revenues from Bed-Stuy, Harlem, and the South Bronx are all negative, so we're pulling the cops out. His approach had to be global and could not be based upon a return for investment in the way that a business's decisions would be.

In this sense, the rule of law does not generate an immediate local profit margin that private businesses can look to for making money. There is conceivably little wrong with using proper business practices in order to streamline government operations and in using competitive bidding and privatizing those parts of the legal system which can so be treated. But in our federal system, should the rule of law break down at one level, the responsibility to restore that rule goes up the hierarchy to the state and then the federal government. The Constitution both provides that the states shall have republican forms of government, and provides for the use of federal troops and state militias in certain circumstances. None of these circumstances has anything to do with the ability to pay or the return on investment to be made.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/27, 10:24am)

Post 228

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 5:45am

In the confines of RoR, I'm sure someone will offer up 'the' definition of justice. But, in analyses based on justice, I think it is invaluable to recognize Sowell quoting Hayek in "A Conflict of Visions," and the intractable(hence, conflicted)differences between those with a 'constrained' vision of justice, vs those with an unconstrained vision of justice, as well as fundamentally intractable definitions of justice, period.

Constrained vision: If the state's use of force is empowered primarily to fairly if imperfectly enforce an equal playing field and protect the resulting unequal but 'fairly' arrived at outcomes, that is one view of state force empowered to enforce 'justice.'

Unconstrained vision: If the state's use of force is empowered primarily to imperfectly enforce equal and thus 'fair' outcomes, that is another view of state force empowered to enforce a radically different and incompatible view of 'justice.'

I"d have no doubt that most RoR'ers would be advocates of the constrained vision of justice. But, not so America at large.

If the state's use of force is empowered to blow around in a political blender, sometimes enforcing one view and sometimes enforcing another view of justice based purely on temporary and local and purely politically arrived at definitions of 'justice', then you have modern America. In America, compromise means only some ballerinas wear Vonnegut's lead weights.

regards,
Fred

Post 229

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 6:02am

Ted:

None of these circumstances have anything to do with the ability to pay or the return on investment to be made.

Indeed. How would one even calculate the ROI for the WWII Generation having faced down Hitler's Germania?

On one side of just America's ledger, we have +400,000 dead, plus the continuing the immense liability of maintaining IKE's MIC, which never stood down after WWII.

Yet, what do we put into our spreadsheets under the assets column, next to "Free World?"

It makes a big difference, if indeed a free world it is. If this was all about Macys merging with Gimbels...I mean, if today we have a choice between Democratic politicos and their plan to run 'The' Economy, vs GOP politicos and their plan to run 'The' Economy, then those assets in the assets column have experienced accelerated depreciation.

regards,
Fred

Post 230

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 10:41am

John wrote, "Justice simply isn't something that is profitable."

To which Rick Pasoto responded: "If something is not profitable then that means that the value of the resources expended is greater than the value of the result."

John replied,

You anarcho-Capitalists have it confused. You can't have any kind of profitable business venture unless there is a reasonable expectation your rights will be secured. First comes the rule of law, then comes the free market. It's not the other way around.

I agree that there has to be a legal framework within which the market is free to operate. That legal framework is, of course, one in which individual rights are respected; it is one that necessarily precludes taxation and other forms of coercive government intervention. So it's not just any rule of law, but a very specific rule of law that is required for a free market -- one in which the initiation of force is banned from human relationships and in which the government cannot, therefore, take your property without your consent.

But within that rule of law, the legal protection of your rights can be a profitable venture. Private security guards, private attorneys, private investigators (like the legendary Jay J. Arms) and other kinds of private police and legal services are profitable enterprises, which can serve the cause of justice and facilitate its implementation.

I am not an anarcho-capitalist, as I understand that theory, in that I don't believe in allowing the operation of competing governments or competing legal systems within the same jurisdictional domain, as these would preclude the kind of uniform rule of law required for the preservation of justice and allow for the initiation of force among rival governments with mutually exclusive laws and regulations. Anarcho-capitalism is non-libertarian for that very reason, as David Friedman, a prominent anarcho-capitalist, has acknowledged. It is the other side of the interventionist coin and is therefore incompatible with the rule of justice. For similar reasons, I don't support a government that has the power to tax its citizens and to dictate their conduct, as it too is non-libertarian and therefore incompatible with justice.

What I do support is the kind of political system that Rand advocated, in which there is only one body of law within a given jurisdictional domain, and in which a ban on the initiation of force is the foundational principle for all of the government's laws and regulations.

- Bill

Post 231

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 1:02pm

I find it extremely difficult to even try to discuss anything that John Armaos writes and his post #223 contains several of my reasons for thinking that way.

First, he misspells my name, even though I had made particular effort to get his name correct.

Second, he seems to think that name calling is a proper form of argument.

Third, he is very sloppy in his use of words.

When I wrote

If something is not profitable then that means that the value of the resources expended is greater than the value of the result.

I was very careful to make the statement as general as possible. John somehow thinks I was referring only to business profit. I wasn't.

John wrote

You can't have any kind of profitable business venture unless there is a reasonable expectation your rights will be secured.

Perhaps he could explain why he thinks that whether or not a particular venture is in fact profitable depends on one's expectations that one's rights will be secured.

Wouldn't it be sufficient for one's property to be respected? Why is it necessary for some third party to be involved? Does it really matter why your property is secure?

John wrote

First comes the rule of law, then comes the free market. It's not the other way around.

What does he mean by free market? I've always considered a free market to be one that was free of governmental interference, no matter the form that government took (ie, monarchial, democratic, dictator, or mafioso).

Individual rights violators (ie, murderers & thieves) do not make a market less free since their actions do not apply to the market as a whole but only to certain individual actors in the market. Similarly, their absence does not make a market more free.

What does he mean by 'rule of law'? There are those (I believe they're called positivists) who claim that law is the whim of the sovereign, that 'rule of law' means that the law applies equally to all regardless of its content. Does John assume some particular content to his 'rule of law'?

John wrote

There is no such thing as having a value to anything if justice isn't first established in society.

What an extraordinary statement!

The existence of values depends on the existence of justice??? Is not justice a value? Is he really claiming that prisoners in the gulag could not have values? That primitive peoples had no values? I suggest he review the definition of the concept 'value'.

PS: I also suggest that everyone review the discussion Rand gave of the concept 'justice' in ITOE.

Post 232

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 2:43pm

Rick, the lunacy spouted by anarchists such as yourself is just not worth my time. Your naivete is amply demonstrated in this statement you made:

Perhaps he could explain why he thinks that whether or not a particular venture is in fact profitable depends on one's expectations that one's rights will be secured.

Wouldn't it be sufficient for one's property to be respected?

Just as Pacifists stake their philosophy on the notion well if everyone was a Pacifist, there would be no need for war, similarly just as anarchists stake their philosophy on the suicidal and foolish notion that as long as all men "respected" each others rights, there would be no need for government. Just visit your local prison and tell me these men "respect" man's rights. Rick, as long as you follow this fairy tale that the civilized world could flourish under a system of no government, of no social system of securing man's rights, then there is this bridge in New York City I'd like to sell you.
(Edited by John Armaos on 8/27, 2:45pm)

Post 233

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 6:36pm

Fred:

The correct definition of justice ...

Treating equals equally, and unequals unequally

... seems so simple that I have to request that you provide a concrete example of how it could "become" difficult. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my mind around the constrained/unconstrained dichotomy that you mentioned. I think that a single concrete example would be invaluable as a springboard for catapulting my understanding of what it is you are saying here.

Thanks for any response,

Ed

Post 234

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 6:39pm

Bill,

Post 230 was awesome.

Ed

Post 235

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 7:22pm

Bill

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?

I'm just amazed you don't see the problems that may arise out of that. The client isn't going to think he got a fair decision from the court and may be convinced the court was in error, the private agency having the desire to fulfill the wishes of their customer will have the incentive to fabricate evidence or give false witness testimony in order to get a good non-acquital record. Why? Because the private police agency is not intersted in being unbiased and impartial, it is interested in MAKING MONEY. Making money is something that is inherently a subjective value trade proposition.

Not to mention you haven't even considered the costs of incarceration. Putting someone in jail is not profitable for anyone, and the costs involved in doing so is beyond the resources of your average victim to afford. Or what happens when a private company running a prison goes bankrupt? Or the victims fail to pay? Or the victims die of old age or move out of town? Are the prisoners let free? Do we incarcerate the victims for failing to pay for a criminal's incarceration? The fact is despite your examples of "private investigators" which can only account for a tiny fraction of the costs involved in the judicial system, it is so naive to think this demonstrates a completely privatized governmental system is possible in attaining the kind of justice we can enjoy as a civilized society. Not to mention we haven't even addressed how a national military defending a nation's borders can be privatized. Can the same company who runs internal police protection for a nation also run the armed forces? Just curious what you would say about Posse Comitatus.

I originally said:

Taking on a criminal gang doesn't mean it is a profitable thing to do.

To which you replied:

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, I believe the confusion here is not whether it is worth it for individuals in society to take down a gang. It is worth it. There is a value in that. But it's not necessarily profitable for a private entity to take action. As Fred Bartlet said in his post, how do you come up with a P&L report and put in for revenues "justice, retribution, and peace". Where is the profit in fighting a war against an aggressor nation? Where is the profit in incacerating a prisoner for decades? Where was the profit in taking on the Soviet Union? There was none, it was an incredibly costly venture who's payoff was only peace and freedom, not dividends for any shareholders.

And if it's not profitable to take down this gang, you would rather have the gang exist in an American city with impunity. Insurance agencies all the time drop clients who become too costly and the occasional agency has been known to go bankrupt. You would also be ok with this apparently.

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.

Bill I'm still confused. My original question was to address the following scenario:

Acme Police Protection Agency is a rogue agency, and fails to follow a court decision. The agency is also infringing on the rights of its clients, let's say it's stealing all their money. Then another agency, Road Runner Police Protection Agency, is sent to arrest Acme Police Protection Agency because the courts asked them to because their court decisions were not being enforced. Road Runner Police Protecton Agency is incurring a cost to arresting Acme Police Protection Agency. How is Road Runner Police Protection agency compensated? Presumably the clients of Acme may have had all their money looted by Acme, and Acme acting in accordance with a lot of criminal gangs, cannot account for the money that was looted. Now what?

Today's justice system takes that criminal gang in the interests of securing man's rights and locks them behind bars without worry of whether the victims or the criminals could afford to pay for this. Because the alternative is far more costly to Americans. The alternative is letting criminals get away with their crimes. I'm not comfortable living in a country like that knowing we let child molestors, gangs, and rapists go free because of insufficient funds from the victim or criminal.

When I asked about privatizing courts (you originally asked incredulously who was advocating farming out all means of retaliatory force to private entities) you said:

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.

Of course this begs the question who is the government and who pays for it to certify a court's protocol? It still requires funding does it not? It still has to have a reason to be respected in order to even have the authority to certify courts. Why should a private court pay attention to the government's codified laws anyways? If the courts operate on a profit margin, and the police operate on a profit margin, there is still the desire to fulfill the wishes of the customer not the government's pleas for a fair and impartial due process. At that point to hell with what the government says fair and impartial due process should look like, we got shareholders to answer to! We got customers to satisfy! At that point there is absolutly no profitable incentive to answer to the government. Especially one that is essentially stripped of any capacity to employ force. Afterall it no longer has it's own police that answers to the government's laws that can arrest the courts, it no longer has an army (the army was sold off to Acme Army Inc.) to use to enforce the law. It just exists in name only. Pleading with the myriad of private protection and private court agencies to follow the rule of law and not kowtow to the subjective whims of their customers seeking disproportionate punishment.

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.

Bill I can't convince you otherwise but I can only say I feel you are so completely wrong on this. I believe I've made a fair enough case why and I will leave it that and I respect your opinion, but I choose to reject it.
(Edited by John Armaos on 8/27, 8:32pm)

Post 236

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 8:22pm

Rand's Last Theorem ?

And how do we establish private police forces that pursue the profit motive, and follow the rule of law, but don't exact taxes or exist under a system where taxes are exacted? In a gum-drop-rainbow fantasy-land of honey-flavored sunshine and chocolate-drop toilet-bowls? Or present day Russia, where no one pays taxes, and everyone pays protection money, and dissenters get eternal free underground accommodations?

The meaning of republic is res publica "the people's thing." Not the rich people's thing, not the fee payer's thing. The people's thing.

Rand fantasized about a future when people would institute a form of government not subsidized by taxes. She didn't embarrass herself so much as to insist on it as a primary without explaining in detail how it might work.

So let's hear it. How do we get there from here? Do we have to wait for the present system to fall? Or is our representative system legitimate? If so, does it not make sense to work toward a workable goal of limited government and minimal taxes which has actually existed before and can exist again, and then from there to nirvana? Or is the mantra "no taxes" the central tenet of an unquestionable faith, more important than actual reform, a dream of the perfect that will absolve us from advocating the merely better?

Yes, yes, yes, Rand wrote it! ...in the margin, and without a proof, like Fermat's last theorem.

So let's hear the proof - let's hear from those who advocate it. We have had minarchist systems, and we know they work - consider the U.S. under the Constitution and the Roman Republic. We've also had voluntarist systems such as The U.S. under the Articles of Confederation and the UN. Those don't seem to be such good models though. And we have, of course, had much, much worse.

I think that for now, a minarchist system with a minimal tax burden is a good enough system for living on earth. Some people object; even good enough isn't perfect. Well, I'm no enemy of the perfect, just not one to walk smiling off a precipice.

Show me the plan in detail.

Ted Keer

[In response to Joe below:

We have historical examples of workable minarchist systems, examples of systems such as the UN, the Polish Diet, and the Articles of confederation that didn't work, examples of protection rackets from feudal systems to warlords to mafia systems. We don't have anything but words from the non-taxers.

And Rand spent what, three paragraphs on the topic, while supporting Goldwater, Nixon and Ford for president. Rand felt the topic was a far away long off subsidiary goal. It's like interstellar travel - I'm not against it on principle, but it's sooner than you think.

Those who want to make this such a big issue now bear the burden of showing how any such system is workable - Rand only had vague ideas, and they bear the burden of showing why it's such a priority now. The argument is academic so far as I'm concerned, and I don't see the coming of the promised land in my lifetime - but would be happy to be proven wrong.]

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/28, 1:22am)

Post 237

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 12:26am

I was just wondering what people here thought about the burden of proof in this debate. Who has to prove their case, and who wins by default? Certainly many people in the general public would probably say that anyone offering a change is required to prove that it will work. But that's not necessarily a rational standard. If we know the current system has problems, why is the default position that change is bad?

From an Objectivist perspective, it seems that a consistent approach to rights means no taxation. Maybe it's possible to prove that that's impossible, and you need taxation. But who has the burden here? Does Bill have to convince everyone that his ideas will work, and if he can't, the default is a system of taxation? Or do those advocating taxation, even if it's viewed as a necessary evil, carry the burden of proof? Or do both of them have to shoulder that burden, with the default being the mixed economy we have today?

My own view is that the burden always rests on those advocating taxation, as they are advocating a violation of individual rights. If they want to argue it's necessary, they have to prove that there is no other option (i.e., that it is necessary). But it seems like some of the participants in this conversation act as if Bill is the one who must prove that taxation isn't necessary. Even if they proved he was wrong, it doesn't make their own position the slightest bit better unless they get the default win.

So where does the burden rest? And why?

Post 238

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 5:29am

Joe, Bill's arguments go beyond taxation and talk of privatizing the use of retaliatory force. When Rand said the government ought to have a monopoly on the use of retaliatory force she meant it. You could read my last few posts and say I'm an advocate for voluntary taxation but not an advocate for privatizing government force. So really taxation to Bill's arguments for privatizing the use of force is merely a red herring.

Post 239

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 6:29am