[mikema63]

Have you met the same humanity I have?

[SolarCross]

Have you met the same humanity I have? :?:

Probably not, you live in the US and I do not.

[Rei Murasame]

Homo Sapiens - it means "thinking man" or "wise man". Interesting neh?

Thinking doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing what ought to be done. Humans require hierarchy. It cannot be escaped from.

Birds are very stupid, rabbits are very stupid, wolves are very stupid yet we don't think they need policy to survive. Why should earth's wisest animal need such rules when rules are for fools?

But those species have indeed evolved their own policies.

If you look at natural man who exists much removed from the policy of central planners, say the Amish, or so called primitive peoples then you see people that really live up to their designation as wise men.

I'm going to undercut this train of thought right there. How exactly are the Amish 'wise'? The Amish are stuck in agrarian primitivism and extreme patriarchy, and are existing today solely because Americans think they are cute and are willing to give them infusions of GDP in order to make something quite grotesque look neat and clean and tidy.

Yet in reality, that kind of society looks like this thing in Pakistan, once you take away the polished exterior:

Witness: Shabeena's Quest
[youtube]HHdDq8hUG0U[/youtube]

This is not a cheap-shot. I urge everyone in this thread to watch that video right the way through from start to finish.

The part of that video that impacted me the most was right around 12mins 30secs in the section where they introduce a third year student named Zarina. Reflect on the lost potential in these women, and how easily they could be encouraged to support a revolution. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose. People like Zarina are who I am hoping for in the world, because notice how she says with a serious expression that she would even kill her own siblings if it was for her gain to do so (and it is).

It honestly makes me sad that no one is there to facilitate development there, because people like Zarina would be absolutely perfect administrators in such an environment. But because no one is there to make political changes, people like her are constrained by the hordes of idiots around them who ought to be killed.

At the end, when Zarina is forced to marry some paedophile, think about how in an ideal world the tables should be turned. The socially conservative paedophile should be getting shot in the back by some kind of socialist woman, in front of a trench that his body would fall into, a trench containing the bodies of his ideological groupies who have already been shot. That's the kind of constructive 'atrocity' that you need a hierarchical system in order to actualise. Dreams like that - dreams of changing the entire social order - don't come from just talking alone. Organised violence is the answer.

[SolarCross]

Thinking doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing what ought to be done. Humans require hierarchy. It cannot be escaped from.

I don't need hierarchy. Maybe some do, stunted people may need it but then maybe they are stunted because of hierarchy.

I'm going to undercut this train of thought right there. How exactly are the Amish 'wise'? The Amish are stuck in agrarian primitivism and extreme patriarchy, and are existing today solely because Americans think they are cute and are willing to give them infusions of GDP in order to make something quite grotesque look neat and clean and tidy.

Well in the context of examples you presented that seem to require policy enforcers to minimise the potential for harm, they are very wise. I am not saying the Amish way is the best way or anything like that but there is not much in the way they live that contradicts law. They have policy too, of course, and if you want to criticise their choice to remain in the 18th century you should note that their communities custom of remaining in the 18th century is policy not law. Electricity and motor engines are not unlawful are they? So that is a policy choice.

(As an aside I don't think your claim that they recieve a subsidy in order to live the way they do is even remotely correct, as I understand it their economy is more or less totally self-contained and self-sufficient.)

Which brings me to the other really valuable thing in law, which is as a criteria for judging the merits of policy. Sure law (as a libertarian sees it) is not enough by itself, so there is a purpose for policy. But the problem with policy in isolation from law is it can be anything. This is a cheap shot but consider your german co-religionists circa 1940, the state had a policy that jews were a national threat, that they should have their property confiscated, they should be separated from other ethnicities, taken to camps and then... So is that policy good? Without law you cannot say, you have no idea and anything goes.

[Rei Murasame]

I don't need hierarchy.

Really? You realise that capitalism is hierarchic, right?

I am not saying the Amish way is the best way or anything like that but there is not much in the way they live that contradicts law.

Well, given that it also obviously sucks, why should anyone in that scenario want to obey what you call 'law'? For example, let's say that an Amish woman finally gets tired of being treated in the way that Amish women are treated, and decides to go on a killing rampage against the Amish authorities (yes, someone is clearly in authority there). In your moral system the woman is wrong. In my moral system I'd say she has the right idea but should not have acted as a lone wolf.

And the reason we arrive at these differing conclusions, is because we're in favour of completely different outcomes.

They have policy too, of course, and if you want to criticise their choice to remain in the 18th century you should note that their communities custom of remaining in the 18th century is policy not law.

And the only way to change that policy is through the use of force.

Which brings me to the other really valuable thing in law, which is as a criteria for judging the merits of policy. Sure law (as a libertarian sees it) is not enough by itself, so there is a purpose for policy. But the problem with policy in isolation from law is it can be anything. This is a cheap shot but consider your german co-religionists circa 1940, the state had a policy that jews were a national threat, that they should have their property confiscated, they should be separated from other ethnicities, taken to camps and then... So is that policy good?

According to national socialist law, it was both possible and necessary. The law says what can be done, it doesn't say whether it is actually a good idea or not.

Basically we have entirely different conceptions of what law is supposed to be about. You think that law is about minimizing the use of force. I think that law is about providing a structure in which the ruling class - whoever they happen to be - can accomplish the tasks which they have set for themselves in an orderly way while maintaining social harmony. If I disagree with the law, it means I'm disagreeing with the people who wrote it, or their interpretation of it.

[SolarCross]

Really? You realise that capitalism is hierarchic, right?

Not inherently. I am a functioning capitalist, I work, I trade, I invest, but I have no superiors or inferiors. The relationship between trading partners be they workers, investors, customers is innately peer-to-peer. I know the internal structure of many companies, especially big companies certainly have hierarchical characteristics but I don't think that is exactly required and probably that is only a vestigial habit from back when the market people had to absorb into their economy vast hordes of disenfranchised serfs who had centuries of feudal hierarchy thoroughly stamped into their psyche.

Well, given that it also obviously sucks, why should anyone in that scenario want to obey what you call 'law'? For example, let's say that an Amish woman finally gets tired of being treated in the way that Amish women are treated, and decides to go on a killing rampage against the Amish authorities (yes, someone is clearly in authority there). In your moral system the woman is wrong. In my moral system I'd say she has the right idea but should not have acted as a lone wolf.

What is "obvious" to you isn't obvious to them. If it didn't suit them why would they do it? Why do you even care how they live given it doesn't impact you in any way? Rampage? Are you serious? What is that supposed to accomplish?

And the only way to change that policy is through the use of force.

That is a remarkably unimaginative statement. There are lots of ways of to change policy, negotiation being the most obvious. So as you know I think the policy of tax is a contravention of law as it is identical with theft. Should I pre-emptively murder cops, politicians and taxmen? I am beginning to think that your quickness to turn everything into a bloodbath indicates not that you intellectually see violence as a moral good or a necessity but rather you have an emotional need to commit acts of violence and the intellectualism is only exercised in search of an excuse.

[Rei Murasame]

Should I pre-emptively murder cops, politicians and taxmen? I am beginning to think that your quickness to turn everything into a bloodbath indicates not that you intellectually see violence as a moral good or a necessity but rather you have an emotional need to commit acts of violence and the intellectualism is only exercised in search of an excuse.

Well, on the flipside, I believe that pacifists are not able to think about violence because of something different that happens to them when they are in early development stages of childhood. This is just a speculation that is not backed by anything concrete (yet), but sometimes you can watch children in different families and how they react to problems, and you can almost forecast the sort of person that they'll grow up to be.

Speaking for myself, I think I was always aware that negotiation was based implicitly on the idea that one or both of the parties could just resort to an attempt at force if negotiations break down. Any time I 'cut my losses' (as opposed to making life difficult for someone) after a failed negotiation, it's only because I believe that I would not sufficiently benefit in the long term from the use of force, or that I would lose if I tried to use force, or that it would cause people to be angry enough with me to stop co-operating. And I'd make those calculations all the time, without necessarily putting words to it, but it would be a quick calculation.

But some children you just knew were always going to end up getting pushed around by someone, because some children just never knew when to stop negotiating, they'd even negotiate with bullies. It made no sense. Their behaviour was illogical, and they'd end up being protected by me.

So if we want to talk about 'an emotional need', maybe I have an 'emotional need' to plan to win. I believe that if I want something badly enough, I should be able to get it, somehow. There is always a theory which could allow what I want to happen, to happen. It just becomes a matter of finding out what it is.

So to address your question directly:

Should I pre-emptively murder cops, politicians and taxmen?

Only if you believe that the social conditions exist in which you can get away with it and not be 'held to account' for it. If those conditions don't exist, then you need to find a way to get them to exist.

I'm sure that Ho Chi Minh and his associates used to wonder the same thing, whether they'd ever be in the correct conditions where they could pre-emptively attack South Vietnam and carry out summary killings of 2 million former oppressors, unify the state, and implement a new economic system, without ever being 'held to account' by anyone for having initiated the conflict. Well, they planned for many years and the chance appeared in front of them, and they went and did it, and got it done.

People often forget this, the Vietnam war was not a 'defensive war' by North Vietnam. It was an 'offensive war' deliberately 'initiated' by North Vietnam (if you measure it by the usual UN conventions), meaning that technically North Vietnam broke international law. But they had to.

Long story short, violence or the threat of violence is behind everything, even 'negotiations'. Negotiation in and of itself, presupposes that something unpleasant could be happening instead.

Look for example at the water protest threat that happened in Leicester. Severn Trent water said that it wanted to add fluoride to the water supply. Residents in Leicester responded by threatening to stop paying water bills en masse if Severn Trent went through with it (in essence, the threat was mass theft of water, that's what refusal to pay bills means, refusal to pay for a product you have switched on and running into your sink, is a violent act). Severn Trent backed down and did not fluoridate the water supply. Obviously that teaches me that the threat of force works and is behind all negotiations.

Now, you could say that Severn Trent could just ask the state to arrest everyone who refuses to pay. But if the entire county refuses to pay the water bill, they can't put everyone in jail, and so the population would in fact have defeated them utterly. And they knew it.

[SolarCross]

Well pacifists to be sure are hopeless. Libertarians are not pacifists and neither am I. The only reasonable answer to offensive force is defensive force. I would have not the slightest qualm in shooting a burglar dead for example. That said violence is an extraordinarily poor way of solving disputes and so it should always be a last resort.

[Rei Murasame]

Well, that's a given. If a problem can be worked out with compromise, where both sides can actually get what they really wanted, then generally speaking that's a really nice thing.

But in the kind of scenarios described in this thread, where it's clearly clashing interests that cannot be reconciled in any way, it inevitably leads to violence.