I keep hearing about this in the news and get the feeling something is not being said. What that "something" is remains a bit elusive. I know it begs the question, "At whose expense?", but it warrants more discussion. So here I share it for such discussion. As a childfree rocket scientist, I swear that contraceptio...(Read more...)
Do not under-estimate the consequences of your intelligence, education, and choice of culture. For one thing, you accept responsibility for your actions. Even if you did not, as a government employed engineer, you can be sued for child support. This study gave contraception to women who also bear the consequences of the actions. The men would neither accept those responsibilities nor do they have resources to be attached by court order. So, it is up to the women to take the precautions.
The cost of contraception for a woman is measurable.
Moreover, rape is a reality. Crime knows no neighborhood and the instances of spousal rape in suburbia are simply not reported, but they are really not reported in the inner city where women lack education, resources, and culture. But rape is not something you plan on. ... and certainly not something you, Luke Setzer plan on for yourself. Even if you were victimized, you would not get pregnant. So, if you want to see the contours of the problem, you need a higher perch for your perspective.
The public's money is better spent preventing problems than solving them.
Luke Setzer Club Coordinator, RoR Florida Coordinator
The public's money is better spent preventing problems than solving them.
I say the public's money is best left in their own individual pockets. The only issue here that needs to be addressed is the individual right of a person to keep what is theirs. Protecting individual rights is the only problem that government should concern itself with.
The government should not be spending money on anything other than what is needed to defend individual rights. Not on contraception, nor on abortions.
If a child's rights are violated by his parent it may be necessary for the government to spend money protecting the child, but to go from there to advocating for government buying women birth control is irrational.
The government could go after the parent in an attempt to recover costs and that is reasonable, even if it will seldom be successful, but paying for a woman's birth control is just redistribution, i.e., theft.
My take on your questions, is "No" an Objectivist government would not foot the bill for unwanted children, assuming you mean paying for abortions. And they would also not foot the bill for a woman's birth control.
If you mean taking care of an existing child who is being abused, then the answer to that question would be "Yes." That arises out of the individual rights violation in the abuse. (But, in our society people are generous enough that private, charitable means of supporting foster kids would arise and would be better than a government run or funded system. They would still work with courts and legal guardians since kids don't have the full exercise of their rights till they reach majority.)
Even if the financing is voluntary, it doesn't give the government the right to engage in charity. It can only spend accept funds for spending on things required to protect individual rights.
Luke Setzer Club Coordinator, RoR Florida Coordinator
Steve, I meant the government paying to care for existing but abused children, not abortions. This raises the interesting "sense of life" issue of the people behind this. It smacks of a "veil of tears" view in which women helplessly copulate either from male coercion or uncontrolled urges, bearing children for which they cannot care, bringing hardships on themselves and their offspring. Oh, if only they could make their reproductive capacities affordable and controllable! Sex is just part of living! Who can help anything, anyway?
I have not heard anyone talk about "moral hazard" or "perverse incentives" or other market distortions that arise from providing "free" anything, including "free" contraception.
An ideal Objectivist government is just that, an ideal, a rationalist proposal without reference to actual objective conditions of time and place, like Plato's Republic.
The reality of here and now is that preventing unwanted pregnancies is good because it prevents unwanted children who inevitably harm other people. It also allows women and their existing children to live better lives here and now. The cost is smaller than the burden of fixing the problems later.
We have been around on this before with the case of the coyotes and the child. If the police exist only to "protect your rights" and if coyotes are not rational creatures and are therefore incapable of violating your rights, do the police have a duty to act if they see a child surrounded by coyotes? Must they wait for the child to be attacked, and then arrest the parents for failure to protect the child?
The "Terry Stop" (Wikipedia here) is a prevention carried out by the police. Must they wait for the jewelry store to be robbed before they can act? That is a real life case of actual humans in modern civilization. I believe that a strict Objectivist could easily argue that the police have no constitutional power to act until and unless rights have been violated. According to this theory the police must wait for the store to be robbed and then pursue the suspect. That is wrongful thinking.
So, too, here. You can object that you do not want your tax dollars going to irresponsible people. Fair enough. But that is the nature of taxation and largess. In other words, are you more opposed to this than your tax dollars being spent on anything else? Or do you just dislike poor women?
Their choices might seem obvious to you. That is the nature of other people's problems. It is always easier to fix someone else's.
Moreover, we here in particular have advantages of learning, culture, and choice that other people do not. At the theater the other day, we say an advertisement for a Down's Syndrome celebration of some kind where Downies said that they can do everything we can, even holding jobs in offices and schools. So, why don't they just take care of themselves in the first place? Do you see the problem with that thinking?
An ideal Objectivist government is just that, an ideal, a rationalist proposal without reference to actual objective conditions of time and place, like Plato's Republic.
We do not even agree on what "Objectivist government" means. Others have said that the government does not need to actually have its own police forces, as long as all the private defense agencies agree to the same objective geographic monopoly of law. Do we all agree on that?
How are laws made? If the sine qua non of government is a geographic monopoly on law, then the courts and legislatures must be the primary agencies of state. Do we need an executive?
Why not have this work done by government employees, trained at government schools, clothed from government factories, fed from government farms?What mandate is there that government employees cannot be given homes as part of their compensation?
This is the “arsenal theory” of government.In order to assure that it can carry out its strictly defined and narrowly interpreted functions, the government must be able to produce the goods and services it needs.
But I am happy to report that Dr. Tuchrello was promoted up through the ranks and is now the Director of the LOC's [Library of Congress's] Southeast Asia office in Jakarta, Indonesia. He travels the region looking for references, posters, maps, etc. to purchase to send back to the LOC. The LOC also trades American publications with countries too! The LOC could not have found a more dedicated person for the job! Does the legislature have a right to establish its own reference library? (On my blog here.)
An ideal Objectivist government is just that, an ideal, a rationalist proposal without reference to actual objective conditions of time and place, like Plato's Republic.
No, not really. It is true that it is an ideal, but it is also a goal and that is what makes it possible to make objective plans that call for steps that move in the right direction. ------------
You wrote:
The reality of here and now is that preventing unwanted pregnancies is good because it prevents unwanted children who inevitably harm other people. It also allows women and their existing children to live better lives here and now. The cost is smaller than the burden of fixing the problems later.
You want the government to take money from some people and give it to others as payment for abortion or birth conrol. You justify this theft by claiming that if these unwanted children's births aren't prevented that they will harm other people! That is outrageous! You somehow know which pregnancies would result in criminal actions later? You say the cost is smaller. Cost to who? Are you saying that the government you advocate would have to steal more from us later to spend on the people who you say shouldn't be born? There is only one Objectivist position that works here: No government payment for abortion or birth control. --------------
You are saying that Objectivists shouldn't want the police to intervene if a coyote is about to attack a child because there has been no rights violation. It is strange how often you approach Objectivism as if you were something else. ANY person is free to intervene. Just because the police manual for the locality doesn't have a policy on that doesn't mean the cop can't jump in there, and I doubt that it would be a problem. In purely technical terms, government does act to protect the rights of children where the parent(s) or guardians are the abusers or in neglect - this could be seen as an example of acting in place for the parent. This is really too much of a life-boat situation to use in a serious ethical/political discussion. And, it is one of those arguments that tries to use principles but without much thought. ---------------
You asked about the police needing to wait for the jewelry store to be robbed before they can act. No, that is not required. Attempted robbery is a crime. When there is probable cause to believe that force is about to be initiated, then there is no need to wait till it is. There are criteria in the law that include things like how imminent the threat is, how realistic it is, and is it avoidable. You are right that it would be wrongful thinking for the police to wait, but this is about the violation of individual rights and NOT about taking money from taxpayers to give to other people for abortions or birth control. --------------------
You wrote,
In other words, are you more opposed to this than your tax dollars being spent on anything else? Or do you just dislike poor women?
I am opposed to government taking my tax dollars for anything other than what is needed to protect individual rights. Your remark insinuating that I dislike poor women and that is how I make my decisions is insulting and not terribly bright. -------------------
You wrote:
We do not even agree on what "Objectivist government" means.
We don't have to know the non-essential characteristics of each government that would otherwise meet the criteria of being 'Objectivist.' Could a parlimentary government be 'Objectivist'? I think so. Do I have to know the number of hairs on the head of a given human to know that he is a human? No. You are only person I've seen who makes arguments like this on government. -----------------------
Do we need an executive?
That is a question of a more detailed level of political science. It comes about as we attempt to find a good way to implement the more basic principles that limit power and make for a stable system. I believe we will always be better off with an executive because of the need for a military. Our president and his administration was, once upon a time, much less powerful and far less important. The legislative branch was seen as the most important and the president was just the manager (unless there was a war).
Why is government involved with preventing children at all? Are they a disease? (The implied answer from the dismal nature of family court law as it exists today would be, "yes.")
The public's money doesn't, and never has, increased this culture's value for life. The public's money has, without question, been used to punish one's value for life.
Free contraception sends the message that "children are so horrible, we've pretty much classified them as a disease. They're so bad, we're willing to help you prevent them, like a disease, for free!" With subtle messages like that sinking into the subconscious of an under-educated population, is it any wonder why child neglect, abuse, and murder are a problem?
Few children are being raised with a rational ethic in this country. Every year fewer are even being born from one. I put most of the blame for that on government.
As far as how an Objectivist government would handle the rare (very rare) cases of child neglect and abuse, I'm thinking that the value for life would be so high that finding homes with people who want children wouldn't be a problem. An Objectivist government can ask for volunteers to pick up and care for children who've been removed by police, much like foster care.
The problem is a lack of value for life, particularly the lives of children. The cause of that problem to a huge extent is government.
I would only say that child abuse is no where as rare as it should be. In the nineties, in Los Angeles County, the number children with open cases of abuse or neglect was over 70,000! And I have no idea how many kids whose abuse or neglect hadn't been discovered. And that number doesn't include those kids who had been transferred to Juvenile Services. I blame most of this dismal aspect of our culture on government who has consistently nurtured social irresponsibility.
The Family Court judges that I saw in action were pretty good - lots of common sense, focused on the right things, and decisive, but I only saw this small corner of Family Law and I don't doubt that it is full of nonsense in other areas.
I do know that much of LA County's Family and Children's Services was an awful failure during the time I was there, and the same is true of the foster care system.
Oh, Steve, I meant in an Objectivist society, one that defaults human behaviour back to its rational, value driven, creative, benevolent nature. I think that would render abuse and neglect a very rare crime. Not in todays "government everywhere, all the time, directing human behaviour and thought" environment.
Why is government involved with preventing children at all? Are they a disease? (The implied answer from the dismal nature of family court law as it exists today would be, "yes.")
I can imagine more reasons to say "yes" than "no" but find the prospect of articulating them too depressing and too likely to provoke a divisive argument, so I will not list them.
Suffice it to say that I, personally, have chosen the childfree path because of them.
Quiet often those that would make the most wonderful of parents do not do so! The flip side of course being obvious! (especially those having children with the sole purpose of having the government paying them for breeding!)
Luke Setzer Club Coordinator, RoR Florida Coordinator
That was one of my unstated reasons, Jules. Why would I want to bring my children into a world like that? I do them no service by inflicting that kind of existence upon them.
At least, that is my working assumption in terms of putting innocent children at risk or not.
I have a hard enough challenge defending myself, much less a child who would likely be forced into an educational system hell-bent on molding children into Airhead America drones.
I have many other motives not to reproduce, but I cannot say the preceding does not describe one of them.
I can easily refute many of the reasons parents give for reproducing, such as, "So we will have someone to take care of us when we are old," -- BWAHAHAHAHAHA! -- but I will not list and refute each of them here.
You have made your bed. I have made mine. Now we shall sleep in them for better or for worse.
