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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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Tiplodocus

Sharky,  you seem not to have noticed that the food industry is intent on making profit at the expense of ethics and environmental impact.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Hawkmumbler

That damn potato industry!

ZenArcade

And a convoluted,  but less than cryptic fuck you from Rupert 'ride down a serf' fitzfuckyou. Z
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

The Legendary Shark

And you seem not to have noticed that it is "government" which empowers and enables such economic and environmental negligence in the first place. I seem to remember we've already agreed in the past that, so long as animals are bred for food, smaller traditional-style farms are better than huge factory farms for various reasons.
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It is large corporations who need large factory farms, the kinds of corporations with the money and clout to influence legislation to get those factory farms. The "government," then, with the encouragement and aid of shareholders,  skews the food industry towards profit over welfare, not the food industry itself.
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Leigh S

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 25 November, 2015, 10:11:38 PM
And you seem not to have noticed that it is "government" which empowers and enables such economic and environmental negligence in the first place. I seem to remember we've already agreed in the past that, so long as animals are bred for food, smaller traditional-style farms are better than huge factory farms for various reasons.
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It is large corporations who need large factory farms, the kinds of corporations with the money and clout to influence legislation to get those factory farms. The "government," then, with the encouragement and aid of shareholders,  skews the food industry towards profit over welfare, not the food industry itself.

But without any legislation, the big corporations will just evaporate and the small farms will prosper? You can argue that Governments fail to do the job of governing due to corporate interests and I would agree with you, but to then follow that with get rid of governments and everything will be fine?  Thats a bit like saying that a lot of boats float away from the harbour because no-one ties the ropes properly - the solution is to ban all rope

The Legendary Shark

It's not "government" as a whole I want to get rid of - it can and does perform various useful administrative and organisational tasks. It is immoral "government" power I object to; the perceived right of certain people to initiate force against other people in order to maintain the skewed system.
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As I've said before, there is no magic bullet, no big switch marked 'UTOPIA' waiting to be thrown. It may well be the case that human beings cannot function without coercive direction but I simply do not believe this.
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Whatever the future holds isn't given to me to see, I can only suggest solutions just like everyone else. I don't think the fact that I don't have a Little Grey Book outlining how a perfect society can be practically constructed and run is any reason to disregard my observations of the present (not that you were).
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Whatever future any person wants to build for themselves and those around them, I'm all for. However you want to proceed, so long as you don't harm anyone else in the process, I'm with you all the way. But you take one penny from one person against their will* and you're on your own.
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But that's all theory. Before solutions can be found I think we must first define the problems. I think the major problem with "government" is its perceived but wholly unlawful "right" to initiate violence against whom ever it chooses for whatever reason it chooses.
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Whatever the implications of turning that "right" off or phasing it out might or might not be, my contention is that the "government" cannot logically possess this "right" at all. Irrespective of the consequences of the answer, which can be more effectively discussed once the answer is better understood, I think the question has to be asked - does the "government" have the right to initiate force against the people? If so, in which situations and to what degree? If not, what are the alternatives? I'm in the latter camp, though I grew up mostly in the former.
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*Unless you were reclaiming a penny that person initially stole from you, of course.
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James Dilworth

I can't wait to visit this utopian society you're all working so hard to help build.

Tjm86

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 25 November, 2015, 11:27:53 PM

does the "government" have the right to initiate force against the people? If so, in which situations and to what degree?


I'm not 100% sure what you refer to by this phrase but I am going to work on the assumption that you mean exercise authority to some degree or another.  If that is the case then I would suggest that there is a need for society as a whole to exercise authority over what it considers appropriate standards, as agreed by society as a whole, and that action needs to be taken to enforce those standards where members of society choose to act contrary to those standards.

I think we can agree that, as a specific example, paedophilia is a reasonable standard that should be maintained and that individuals with a predatory tendency should be restricted for the protection of individuals.  In such an instance would it not be appropriate for the government to 'initiate force' to ensure that such individuals are protected from those unhealthy individuals who would inflict harm?

If I have misunderstood what you mean by the phrase then I apologise.

Jim_Campbell

#9548
Quote from: Dandontdare on 25 November, 2015, 04:10:58 PM
They did a similar statistical sleight-of-hand with the figures about the Mid-Staffs deaths.

Indeed. The Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio (HSMR) is not, and never was intended to deliver a figure for 'avoidable' or 'excess' deaths,* and yet the government and every single mainstream media outlet insisted on quoting the figures as if they did.

Even the oft-cited Francis Report into Mid Staffs explicitly stated in its introduction that this was the case, and yet this completely incorrect number, plus the account of a whistle-blower whose claims were difficult to square with established fact** or other relatives' description of Mid Staffs' treatment of patients,*** was used as justification for essential services to be relocated to a different hospital, further away, and for the hospital's eventual closure in the face of massive opposition from local people.****

Cheers

Jim


* The number of avoidable deaths at Mid Staffs during the period discussed was "probably one".

** It's unclear how Julie Bailey's mum, or any other patient, could have been forced to drink water from vases when vases containing water had been banned from wards for several years by that point due to the risks from the pseudomonas bacterium.

*** Didn't see this story in the papers.

**** 'Tens of thousands' march in support of Mid Staffs
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The Legendary Shark

By 'initiate force' I mean everything from issuing threats to murder; forcing someone to do anything they don't want to do.
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The example you give is an interesting one. I'm going to assume that the hypothetical paedophile here is or has been active. Our society has decided paedophilia is a crime and most individuals think so too - it is an example in itself of the initiation of force.
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This being the case, any person at all has the right to initiate preventative force against said paedophile. You don't have to be a politician or a police constable to protect a child from harm.
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"Government," has no more rights than the rest of us in this regard.
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But what if the paedophile is inactive and has vowed always to remain so for moral or emotional reasons? Does the "government" in that case have the right to initiate force against the self-suppressing paedophile in case he or she succumbs to paedophiliac urges?
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I say no - no matter the repugnance of the crime, if it hasn't been committed then it can't be punished.
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Furthermore, it is not given to "government" to apprehend, prevent or punish anyone - that's what our police and courts are for.
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Here's a little fantasy to try and clarify my position on "government" power or the exercise of "authority" - the government issues legislation requiring that all privately owned cars must be painted red under penalty of fines or imprisonment for non-compliance. Does the "government" have the right to do this? The Red Car Bill is, in and of itself, the initiation of force; it is a demand backed up by greater force. A threat, basically.
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Does the "government" have the right to force everyone to drive only red cars? Again, I say no. As a general rule of thumb, I proceed from the standpoint that if I do not have the right to do a thing to another person then nobody else has the right to do that same thing to me, or anyone. It doesn't matter if they're in jeans and a tee, a three-piece bespoke suit, a police constable's or judge's costume, a crown and ermine cape or even stark bollock naked - they have no more or fewer rights than you or me.
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Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 26 November, 2015, 08:10:29 AM
This being the case, any person at all has the right to initiate preventative force against said paedophile. You don't have to be a politician or a police constable to protect a child from harm.

This pre-supposes that "any person at all" has the ability to correctly identify a paedophile and initiate an appropriate response to protect that child. What if the paedophile is the child's sole parent or guardian? Is this hypothetical individual supposed to take on responsibility for the care of that child once they have enforced an appropriate sanction against the paedophile? What if they think the appropriate sanction is to hang the paedophile from the nearest tree? What if they were wrong and supposed paedophile was nothing of the sort?

As usual, Shark, your supposed solutions are hopeless fantasies that begin from a supposition that world works, or can be made to work, in a way that all human history demonstrates is simply never going to happen.

Jim
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The Legendary Shark

You confuse rights and responsibilities, Jim. Just as everyone has the right to initiate protective force they have the equal responsibility to ensure, as far as they reasonably can, that force is properly used. Just like today.
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The emotive questions you ask are all valid and can be asked of the "government," courts, police and individuals today. I presume you ask these questions in order to deflect attention away from the fundamental question of the legitimacy, or otherwise, of "government" rights and powers.
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As usual, Jim, you avoid the core issue and ignore the fact that several billion people more or less get along with each other every day of every year of every century. You ignore the fact that human beings are social animals with innate social instincts. You ignore the fact that it is people who run the world, not abstract entities.
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You instead choose to see your world through the polarising eye of the glass tit, listening to those people who are so desperate to stay in power they'll say anything and promise anything and take credit for anything to justify their position - the people who promise to keep you safe from the nasty and evil rest of us.
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You mistake the fundamental societal organisation of human beings, all networked together in a complex web of transactions and interactions that has existed since time before memory, as the work of "government." You see the natural order of humanity and mistake it for the imposed order of a ruling body (the fact that this body takes credit for as much of society's natural order as it can helps foster this misperception).
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It is you, I think, who live more in a fantasy world - or nightmare. What the current "government" is doing to the NHS enrages you, and rightly so, but still you believe they have the right to do it. "I don't want you to beat me, Master, but I believe you have the right to do so."
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Jim_Campbell

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 26 November, 2015, 09:00:21 AM
It is you, I think, who live more in a fantasy world - or nightmare. What the current "government" is doing to the NHS enrages you, and rightly so, but still you believe they have the right to do it. "I don't want you to beat me, Master, but I believe you have the right to do so."

No, I don't believe that, because they have no mandate to do it. If the democratically elected will of the people expressly mandated the end of the NHS, then I would accept that my choices would be: put up with it, or emigrate to country with publicly-funded healthcare free at the point of use.

My anger is not just at the government's actions, but at their Orwellian ability to say one thing and demonstrably, visibly, do another, with the complicity and, in many cases, the active assistance of the mainstream media.

You can present people with the fact that the current Health Secretary co-wrote a book on privatising the NHS and people will still maintain that the government won't privatise the NHS. All I can do, as a participant in the democratic process, is try to change people's minds. I can only try to do that one person at a time, but if enough of us try to do that then maybe, just maybe, we can create some resistance to the fiction on this issue peddled by the government and distributed by much of the media.

So, no, I am engaged with world as it is and once again you resort to accusations of sheep-like subservience and submission at anyone who doesn't share your worldview.

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Hawkmumbler

Ah the "good nigger' argument never fails to shoot itself in the foot.

TordelBack

#9554
Quote from: Hawkmonger on 26 November, 2015, 09:25:26 AM
Ah the "good nigger' argument never fails to shoot itself in the foot.

Wait, he's that Jim? Well it's a blame ridiculous, Huckmonger, and no mistake.




(EDIT: now I'm thinking I should clarify this post, suspecting that Huckleberry Finn might not have the universal currency that it once did).