question for Liberals

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I do think that a separation is needed. I feel that in order to incorporate and enjoy the protection to the individual they should meet stricter requirements. Primarily in the area of accountability being established prior to being granted status as a separate legal entity. I feel that if a business is to be incorporated, then someone must be held accountable. Too many hide their actions behind the corporation as an entity to get away with some serious violations of law, morality, fiscal responsibility, and public trust.

Why does a child go to his room when his parents tell him to?

When you rail against the imposition of social order at such a benign level, you look like a child throwing a tantrum and screaming, 'You're not the boss of me! You can't tell me what to do!'
What, pray tell, do *you* think should happen when someone breaks the law and/or disturbs the social order, and will not accept social censure for it?

Maybe you think an embargo will work?

Because if he doesn't, the police will arrest him when he next leaves the house. Presumably then the fine is automatically withdrawn from his bank account or some such.

In this country, men with guns will only ever come if it is suspected that you are a threat to someone else's life. The above scenario is the unlucky one where the police take the trivial crime seriously. Most of the time, at some stage or another it will be ignored, because it isn't in the public interest.

"Compelled by the possible threat of guns if you are an idiot and commit several more crimes" is not equal to "compelled at gunpoint".

So a private citizen who's committed a victimless "crime" is like a child, and government officials are like everybody's parents. That's a telling choice of analogies.



Sunday blue laws and the like are no more than minor annoyances, most of the time, but they are still rights violations and thus hardly benign. They benefit nobody. If I want to stop at a store on Sunday morning and buy a six-pack of beer (maybe because I work nights, and that's when I do my shopping), and Bob the grocer wants to sell it to me, nobody else is being harmed or affected in any way. By what right do people who don't even know either of us say, "Oh no, we can't allow that, not before noon"? It's absurd.



More ad homs. Well, you look like an apologist for any atrocity a government may commit. Just accept it, they no doubt told Alan Turing, it's the will of society ....



"The social order" has no objective definition. I advocate a legal system which employs force only against those who initiate its use, through force or fraud. Interactions among adults which violate nobody's rights should not be crimes at all. To express it in terms of current controversies, I support the right of gay married couples to defend their marijuana plants with guns.

Regardless of what you think of the analogy, the child goes to his room because he accepts the parents' authority. The parents don't have to threaten to shoot the child, and neither does the cop. Mr.Beer-on-Sunday accepts the cop's authority to tell him what to do. It's a power that we, collectively, give to cops - not because we're children, but because we accept that humans sometimes need limits and people to enforce those limits.


I agree. But the way to fight a blue law is not to revolt; it's to change the law.

Yes. I will be more constructive, then: someone who protests against the enforcement of order is someone who is as greedy and selfish as a child who has not yet learned that the world does not revolve around him, and is exactly the type of person that law enforcement exists to protect the rest of us from.

Accepting a minor fine is a far cry from accepting chemical castration.


So, what do you do when someone won't pay a fine? Do you even acknowledge the existence of legitimate crimes not involving use of force, or of punishments not involving the use of force?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract

Limits based on the principle of individual rights = rule of law.
Limits based on arbitrary whims and primitive superstitions = rule of men.
I know which system I want to work toward.



The onus is on you to explain exactly how private behavior such as we are discussing poses a threat to anybody else.



Can you think in principles? Once you grant the State the power to control private, non-rights-violating behavior, where do you draw the line, and on what principle?



I said 'force or fraud,' but arguably fraud also involves the indirect use of force. So, no.



If inflicted by the State, name one.

By your definition, there is no one in the DC political arena advocating a rule of law.

Sad but true.

What, you think "law" is some sort of divine code that exists independent of humanity?


It's not just private behavior. Why set up toilets in private stalls? Why not set out urinals in public? Who is harmed when a man flashes people, or for that matter masturbates in public?
There are codes of behavior in any civilization, and that's a part of what makes civilization possible. There are things that are acceptable in the country (letting your dog poop on public property without picking it up) that are not acceptable in urban areas, because the press of people (and dogs) makes the cumulative consequences greater.


Can you think in principles? Once you deny society the right to regulate disturbing but not directly, individually harmful behavior, where do you draw the line, and on what principle?

See above. So, the people who urinate next to my dojo's doorway aren't committing a crime, as far as you're concerned?
Fines or behavioral prohibitions (revocation of licenses, etc), without the theoretical threat of force behind them.

LKL, I think you probably need to take a step back. You disagree with luanqi, fair enough, but now you are equating soft drugs, gay marriage and Sunday trading with public masturbation. I am fairly sure you support decriminalising soft drugs and legalising gay marriage, and I would be surprised if you are a vocal supporter of Sunday trading laws. Essentially, I get the impression you're arguing on ideological grounds, rather than what you actually believe in.

We aren't wild animals, we are domesticated. We created a system where it's no longer viable in most places to hunt and gather your own food. It's clearly hate for the poor, since conservatives think nothing of wasting billions on the military, redundant spy agencies, tax breaks for their rich cronies, and laws that enable money to be sheltered from taxes. They demonize the poor by pointing to unrepresentative example of people abusing the system. So what if a tiny minority of people are dependent? Is that such a bad thing? Forget minimum wage, everyone should get a minimum salary from the government, so that poverty is eliminated. If we don't have to worry about getting basic needs met, we can spend more time on creative endeavors, and making the world a better place. We have the money to do this. A freaking High School in one state was able to raise 60 million dollars from the public to build a football stadium. Imagine if we really cared about education, we could eliminate a big cause of poverty. But we aren't interested in doing that, just blaming the victims.

you are absolutely correct about what I support, but luanqi has made this about the concept of what laws can and cannot regulate, rather than about the specific issues. It is not about the specific issues, but about whether or not the state has a right to regulate "private behavior."
My point is that what the state legitimately regulates is not always just about harming other people or about whether they're only doing something to their own body.