rickoshea wrote:
Well, I thought I did. What part of "...Like it or not, we have a legislative and legal system that has approved of these actions and laws, and it's someone's job to enforce it. Trying to arrest someone is not the same as trying to exterminate or enslave an entire race." didn't answer your question? I didn't say anything about trying to exterminate or enslave an entire race. I'm saying, would you support the enforcement of a law approved and passed by the legislature, that said it was against the law to free a slave?
rickoshea wrote:
Lets try this.... We live in a democracy, which, like it or not, is loosely based on majority rule.
Google wrote:
"...All democracies are systems in which citizens freely make political decisions by majority rule. But rule by the majority is not necessarily democratic: No one, for example, would call a system fair or just that permitted 51 percent of the population to oppress the remaining 49 percent in the name of the majority.
How is a rule by a majority unjust or unfair when 51 percent of a population decides something? How can the majority make a fiat statement that something is just, but
not in
some cases? Why is something undemocratic if it is unjust or unfair? Who says? The majority?
And how would you define "oppression?" And by what rule do you judge "oppression," or "injustice," if you want to go say that the majority can morally pass and enforce any law they want,
but not really? Where are you drawing your line? I can't see that you have a theoretical or practical line at all, Rick.
Google wrote:
In a democratic society, majority rule must be coupled with guarantees of individual human rights that, in turn, serve to protect the rights of minorities--whether ethnic, religious, or political, or simply the losers in the debate over a piece of controversial legislation.
Who
says that majority rule must be coupled with guarantees of individual human rights? Who is able to say the majority has to do anything it doesn't want to? Who is able to enforce that? You just got done telling me that "orders are orders," so their actions were justified. Well, the majority gives orders.
Google wrote:
The rights of minorities do not depend upon the goodwill of the majority and cannot be eliminated by majority vote. The rights of minorities are protected because democratic laws and institutions protect the rights of all citizens."--Google search.
Really? In a democracy, the "rights" (in other words, the
ability to exercise rights, in the flawed modern sense) of the minority are
absolutely dependent upon the goodwill of the majority, and are routinely trampled by the majority (or just by the powerful.) "Democratic laws and institutions protect the rights of all citizens." They
do? So the U.S. laws and its governmental institutions were not actually a form of democracy until, oh, about
1968?
Sans Authoritas wrote:
"...Where do you draw the line? I draw it at "enforcing only those laws that protect the individual life, liberty and property of individuals from unjust aggression or fraud." Is that unreasonable?"
rickoshea wrote:
Define unjust. That is very subjective. Most people in jail think prison is unjust. Those on death row think capitol punishment is unjust. Illegal immigrants think requiring citizenship is unjust. Accusing O.J. was unjust. Based on that definition, taxes of any kind are unjust, as is government in general, as it is not for the "individual". Talk about a loose end.
Justice is subjective? That is like saying color is subjective. Colors, in themselves, are not subjective. Colors are defined by a specific wavelength of light. Our
perception of color may be subjective. As it is, something tells me that a murderer or rapist who thinks he shouldn't be executed for his crime doesn't have the best perception to begin with, because he obviously doesn't think that taking the life of an innocent or violating the body of an innocent is unjust. If one is justly able to defend oneself against murder or rape with lethal force, then it means that the offender has forefeited his life. Execution, in such a case, is a manifestation of justice.
I am not an illegal immigrant, and requiring that people get documents, under threat of violence, to say "you may peacefully work and live here and mind your own business" is
absolutely unjust.
Let's define justice. Justice is "rendering to another that which is due to him." If you and I agree upon a certain wage for a certain amount of labor, in justice, you owe me the wage you promised so long as I provide the work I promised. Each person owes it to every other person to respect the other person's life, liberty and property, and to compensate them for any intentional or accidental violation of said life, liberty and property, insofar as it is possible. Why do you owe
anything to
anyone for working hard and peacefully, and minding your own business? Government didn't give you that. Government has
always been the most
notorious violator of rights and worker of injustice. 200,000,000 million people from the 20th century alone are
corpses because governments had the means (taxation and conscription) and incentive to slaughter them, while no market-funded individual, group of individuals, or corporation could ever have done so.
Taxation is
absolutely unjust. What is taxation but a group of people with a forced monopoly on certain services taking your property through force or the threat of force? You call that
just? If I were a squeegee guy at a traffic light, do you think I would have the
right to come up to your window, dip my squeegee into a grimy bucket of aggregate-laden water, proceed to scratch the tar out of your window, and
demand, at gunpoint, that you pay me for the "service" that you had just received? Would you
owe me anything, even if I had cleaned your windshield with clean water? No? Why not?
If not, explain to me how
government has any right to demand payment for its "services" forced upon you against your will?
Ah, do I have to move if I don't like it? Do you consider taxation "voluntary" by me living in a particular area? If I drew a line in the sand out in the middle of nowhere, and said, "if you cross that line in the sand, I have the right to punch you in the face and take your money for the privilege of crossing that line," would I
really have the right to punch you in the face for stepping into that box?
What planet would you like me to move to, if living in a place with taxes collected by violence or the threat of violence is "voluntary?"
I pay taxes. But not because I owe any government officials. I pay only because if I do not, I will be thrown in prison. So far, it's not quite worth it to refuse to pay taxes. Paying taxes because I am forced to does not equate to, "I owe the individuals who have created a violent monopoly on certain goods and 'services,' all of which I do not need, or could be provided by a voluntary and free market."
As for the fugitive slave act, I would not approve of that law, and would try to overturn it. As to the officer enforcing that law, he has to live with his conscience, and would get no support from me, in any sense. He can choose to be a cop or not.
Why? Why would you not approve of the law, or support the policeman enforcing it, given that the legislature, made up of the majority of the people the majority of voters chose, approved of and passed such a law? Why would you not support the police officer for "doing his job" and "following orders" in
this case, given that your sole stated criterion was "the system approves of it?"
But I must stress I wouldn't in my wildest dreams equate drugs with slavery. To me, that's like me saying I'm getting a gun for home defense any you expecting to find an 88 in my front yard. Or that if I say I think it's ok to do 60 in a 55 you think I mean it's ok to do 110. Your conclusion, not mine.
I am not at all equating drugs with slavery. I am equating injustice with injustice by species, not by degree.
-Sans Authoritas