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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
House Republicans will meet in closed session Monday night, as congressional negotiators and the White House near a two-year budget deal that would boost defense and domestic spending by tens of billions of dollars, and lift the debt ceiling until March 2017.
The ambitious accord, which is being negotiated by top House, Senate and White House officials, would boost defense and nondefense spending by $50 billion next year, and $30 billion the year after, split evenly between defense and nondefense programs. Negotiations are fluid, however, and specifics might change before legislation is filed.
A cap on premium hikes for Medicare Part B beneficiaries — sought by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) but initially rejected by the White House — would also be included. Medicare Part B covers doctors’ services, outpatient hospital services, and some home health care. The deal under discussion is also expected to address Social Security disability insurance, according to multiple sources.
The new spending would be offset by extending existing measures to contain Medicare and hospital costs, the sources said.
A bill could be filed by Monday night, which could set up a midweek vote.
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On October 27 2015 04:53 Simberto wrote:
It makes one wonder if these people are actually that detached from reality that they believe that bullshit, which as a logical conclusion means that the US president has the power to mislead pretty much the rest of the world, or if they just go along with what they have been bribed to say to make the people bribing them happy and get them more "campaign donations" or "lobbying money".
It could be that they are saying the US president will mislead the world not about global warming (since there Inhofe would more likely say the rest of the world is trying to mislead the US President)
I think he May be trying to say the US president may be misleading the world about what he can do. As in Obama can promise to set US carbon emissions to 0 next year, but he can't do that without Congress*
*not actually true, Obama probably could set global anthropogenic carbon emissions to near 0 without Congress, he would just need a few generals and the 'red button'... but actually regulating carbon emissions down, I doubt he can do anything significant, because the Senate has people like Inhofe.
Congress also has many more less extreme people who will say it is real, but we're not going to trust the government to balance the economic sacrifice of cutting emissions v. living with warming. (as well as people who have a different letter than Obama)
Probably the best thing Obama could do for climate change is go into the Paris treaty and say the US is committed to doubling our carbon emissions every 10 years, and he's going to strive to make that the legacy of his Presidency. Carbon taxes may get some Republicans on board with that.
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On October 27 2015 07:00 Krikkitone wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 04:53 Simberto wrote:
It makes one wonder if these people are actually that detached from reality that they believe that bullshit, which as a logical conclusion means that the US president has the power to mislead pretty much the rest of the world, or if they just go along with what they have been bribed to say to make the people bribing them happy and get them more "campaign donations" or "lobbying money". It could be that they are saying the US president will mislead the world not about global warming (since there Inhofe would more likely say the rest of the world is trying to mislead the US President) I think he May be trying to say the US president may be misleading the world about what he can do. As in Obama can promise to set US carbon emissions to 0 next year, but he can't do that without Congress* *not actually true, Obama probably could set global anthropogenic carbon emissions to near 0 without Congress, he would just need a few generals and the 'red button'... but actually regulating carbon emissions down, I doubt he can do anything significant, because the Senate has people like Inhofe. Congress also has many more less extreme people who will say it is real, but we're not going to trust the government to balance the economic sacrifice of cutting emissions v. living with warming. (as well as people who have a different letter than Obama) Probably the best thing Obama could do for climate change is go into the Paris treaty and say the US is committed to doubling our carbon emissions every 10 years, and he's going to strive to make that the legacy of his Presidency. Carbon taxes may get some Republicans on board with that.
If Obama touched it the Republicans dont want any of it. Regardless of how much sense it makes.
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On October 27 2015 04:03 KwarK wrote:
What we give the rich in exchange for their taxes is all going along with the idea that anyone anywhere deserves that much money. We pretend the system isn't insane and we don't burn it all down and they pay a little more in taxes. An awful lot of people will disagree and say private property is sacrosanct and that the rich earned all they have but if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's. Now don't get me wrong, private property works. It motivates people. It generates production. I like it, I just don't worship it as natural law.
Why does anyone deserve any money then? Or is it only after you hit a certain threshold that private property becomes not-so sacrosanct? I think this definitely deserves more explanation than you gave it. It's a pretty bold claim that private property is not a natural and primary right of mankind. Especially when the system of governance in the US (this is a US politics thread after all) was pretty much entirely based on the idea that property was specifically a natural right.
Which is where I sometimes am confused by the more left-leaning liberals. They obviously do not subscribe to the traditional values of the country, but rather some other value system; which is perfectly fine, but then I don't understand the idea that conservatives are insane for wanting to stay within the boundaries of the system; rather than completely upending the system, and going so far as to eliminate the primary founding principles. It would seem that the "radical" idea in this scenario is the one that rejects the nature of the country itself.
I'm aware that you didn't advocate the elimination of private property in your post, but your reasons seemed to be pretty coldly utilitarian, and it almost seems as though you think it is even, perhaps, an immoral idea. One cannot help but wonder if the right to property could exist if most of the citizens held the view of it that you seem to do.
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On October 27 2015 08:49 Cowboy64 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 04:03 KwarK wrote:
What we give the rich in exchange for their taxes is all going along with the idea that anyone anywhere deserves that much money. We pretend the system isn't insane and we don't burn it all down and they pay a little more in taxes. An awful lot of people will disagree and say private property is sacrosanct and that the rich earned all they have but if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's. Now don't get me wrong, private property works. It motivates people. It generates production. I like it, I just don't worship it as natural law.
Why does anyone deserve any money then? Or is it only after you hit a certain threshold that private property becomes not-so sacrosanct? I think this definitely deserves more explanation than you gave it. It's a pretty bold claim that private property is not a natural and primary right of mankind. Especially when the system of governance in the US (this is a US politics thread after all) was pretty much entirely based on the idea that property was specifically a natural right. Which is where I sometimes am confused by the more left-leaning liberals. They obviously do not subscribe to the traditional values of the country, but rather some other value system; which is perfectly fine, but then I don't understand the idea that conservatives are insane for wanting to stay within the boundaries of the system; rather than completely upending the system, and going so far as to eliminate the primary founding principles. It would seem that the "radical" idea in this scenario is the one that rejects the nature of the country itself. I'm aware that you didn't advocate the elimination of private property in your post, but your reasons seemed to be pretty coldly utilitarian, and it almost seems as though you think it is even, perhaps, an immoral idea. One cannot help but wonder if the right to property could exist if most of the citizens held the view of it that you seem to do.
I think the entire idea of "I worked for this, so I am entitled to it" gets a little weird once you start getting above (totally arbitrary here) 1 billion dollars. It's more so the idea that someone who is worth $500,000 is 1/2000 as successful as someone who is worth 1,000,000,000. The 1 billion guy is not 2000x smarter or hardworking. There is a certain amount of momentum that occurs where people's wealth can explode. Look at some investors making 200 million in a year and other insane shit like that. I do think there is something reasonable to be said about people's wealth being just plain excessive where their existence in our country is something entirely different than even a millionaire. No one is so amazing that they should be given what is essentially a greater-than-human position in our society.
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On October 27 2015 04:03 KwarK wrote:
What we give the rich in exchange for their taxes is all going along with the idea that anyone anywhere deserves that much money. We pretend the system isn't insane and we don't burn it all down and they pay a little more in taxes. An awful lot of people will disagree and say private property is sacrosanct and that the rich earned all they have but if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's. Now don't get me wrong, private property works. It motivates people. It generates production. I like it, I just don't worship it as natural law.
The rich don't need more votes to offset more taxes. What they get is to live in a world where the concept of rich exists.
I really don't get how the same person can reasonably state that the idea is that "anyone anywhere deserves that money" and "private property works." My first instinct is to say, "If you don't know why it works, then stop f***ing with it until it stops working." It isn't some right granted by benevolent overlord, it was the pre-existing state of things when the first social contract was signed. I'll agree by these rules, these leaders, bound by these separation of powers, with these laws. It'll take some of my money, I'll have to allow representatives to pursue my interests far away that might fail to do so, but I gain protections for my private property and from enemies abroad and thieves/troublemakers at home.
Then the perverse incentives to vote yourself more money from the rich people come in, and little by little you realize that original compact is essentially rent in half. Persons C & D have decided you don't deserve your funds, they have more political clout and voting power, so A & B will just have to get along without it ... which today involves foreign investments, lobbying, and tax loopholes. But getting back to the original argument--it isn't about deserving at all in the first place. We went in voluntarily not to create masters to deem what is fair and unfair + Show Spoiler +and its always the other guy that is an evil greedy sonofabitch, how strange
What is the result? Every tax break is criticized as being for the rich, because the foundation of present statist society is enslaving their success to run various ill-conceived entitlement programs. Every entitlement increase is lauded as compassionate, with the implicit understanding that we can borrow forever and increases taxes on everybody other than us if things get bad.
if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's.
If that isn't the most boldly stated politics of envy and base demagoguery. I think you've lost all ability to look down on the other radical fringe. That is, if you trace Kwark's arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has very little property, yet has all kinds of designs on the property that is exclusively others (and all kinds of reasons why he was unjustly denied his rightful well-off position in life).
How about saying, as you put it, "we pretend the system isn't insane" but meaning that the levels of taxing and spending are above the tolerable limits for a free society. That the scales of freedom and security are overly weighed down on the security side. That growth, enterprise, and labor is being hurt for no balanced gain, and will trend downward if current political winds hold. I have nothing against the honest man wanting to do a little more for the poor and the aged, assuming he doesn't ground it on evil white rich folks making them so and deserving to be taken down a notch. I too want an increase in wage mobility, jobs availability, and a general increase in quality of life across the board. I don't need to assume Kwark is some societal malcontent or psychopath for advancing his positions, but I've learned the same goodwill is not typically returned--with an extra heavy dose of "proof" that conservatives really want widespread pain and misery for the currently poor. That our worldview is simply reckless or negligent. I see the current proposals genuinely causing the ranks of the poor to increase, even as simultaneously the rich become less rich. Lose-lose.
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On October 27 2015 08:49 Cowboy64 wrote:
It's a pretty bold claim that private property is not a natural and primary right of mankind. Especially when the system of governance in the US (this is a US politics thread after all) was pretty much entirely based on the idea that property was specifically a natural right.
Which is where I sometimes am confused by the more left-leaning liberals. They obviously do not subscribe to the traditional values of the country, but rather some other value system; which is perfectly fine, but then I don't understand the idea that conservatives are insane for wanting to stay within the boundaries of the system; rather than completely upending the system, and going so far as to eliminate the primary founding principles. It would seem that the "radical" idea in this scenario is the one that rejects the nature of the country itself.
The Lockean Labor Theory of Property was indeed influential on the founders. However it was also part of the basis for limiting voting rights to landowners, and I would submit that over our history this idea is something that has become profoundly un-american (as voting rights expansion attests to). Not all values ascribed to by our founders are values any sane person considers inherit and valuable, let alone entitled to the prestige of the term "traditional".
The philosophical basis and justification for private property is complex and can't just be boiled down to being "traditionally american" any more than slavery is.
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I'm confused as to why you think the perverse incentives to vote yourself more money as a poor person are any more of a problem than the perverse incentives to lobby yourself more money as a rich person, Danglars. They both should be controlled if you want a functional democratic society. I think that people can make a good argument that currently the former is as much if not more problematic than the latter.
I mean, the natural solution to preventing the former perverse incentive is just letting people buy votes, but surely you would agree that's absurd?
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Liberal constitutional republicanism was, originally, mainly about protecting the assets of the propertied classes both from the monarchical state AND from the 'rabble.' This is the reason that voting rights were limited to the propertied classes. The extension of the franchise during the course of 20th century social struggles did, in fact, undermine the basic raison d'etre of the liberal constitutional order by giving voting rights to people who did not have property (and who would then have an interest in using those voting rights to redistribute property). So Danglars is correct. The "original compact" of liberal constitutionalism has indeed "been rent in half" by the fact that those other than the asset owning classes can vote.
He's just wrong to think that this is a bad thing 
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United States42778 Posts
On October 27 2015 09:03 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 27 2015 04:03 KwarK wrote:
What we give the rich in exchange for their taxes is all going along with the idea that anyone anywhere deserves that much money. We pretend the system isn't insane and we don't burn it all down and they pay a little more in taxes. An awful lot of people will disagree and say private property is sacrosanct and that the rich earned all they have but if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's. Now don't get me wrong, private property works. It motivates people. It generates production. I like it, I just don't worship it as natural law.
The rich don't need more votes to offset more taxes. What they get is to live in a world where the concept of rich exists. I really don't get how the same person can reasonably state that the idea is that "anyone anywhere deserves that money" and "private property works." My first instinct is to say, "If you don't know why it works, then stop f***ing with it until it stops working." It isn't some right granted by benevolent overlord, it was the pre-existing state of things when the first social contract was signed. I'll agree by these rules, these leaders, bound by these separation of powers, with these laws. It'll take some of my money, I'll have to allow representatives to pursue my interests far away that might fail to do so, but I gain protections for my private property and from enemies abroad and thieves/troublemakers at home. Then the perverse incentives to vote yourself more money from the rich people come in, and little by little you realize that original compact is essentially rent in half. Persons C & D have decided you don't deserve your funds, they have more political clout and voting power, so A & B will just have to get along without it ... which today involves foreign investments, lobbying, and tax loopholes. But getting back to the original argument--it isn't about deserving at all in the first place. We went in voluntarily not to create masters to deem what is fair and unfair + Show Spoiler +and its always the other guy that is an evil greedy sonofabitch, how strange but for protections for that property as free men. It doesn't involve this false dichotomy of private property sacrosanct and rich deserve every dime. It's agreeing to let each man lawfully pursue their own interests, and give generously or hoard every dime telling the rest of society to go pound sand if they want to take your money and property by force. I'm not talking about a low level of welfare for the genuinely impoverished citizen, organized locally and duly voted on, I'm talking about levels of taxation exceeding 50% state+federal. What is the result? Every tax break is criticized as being for the rich, because the foundation of present statist society is enslaving their success to run various ill-conceived entitlement programs. Every entitlement increase is lauded as compassionate, with the implicit understanding that we can borrow forever and increases taxes on everybody other than us if things get bad. Show nested quote +if you trace those arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has an awful lot of private property and yet the labour is almost exclusively someone else's. If that isn't the most boldly stated politics of envy and base demagoguery. I think you've lost all ability to look down on the other radical fringe. That is, if you trace Kwark's arguments back you typically find yourself looking at someone who has very little property, yet has all kinds of designs on the property that is exclusively others (and all kinds of reasons why he was unjustly denied his rightful well-off position in life). How about saying, as you put it, "we pretend the system isn't insane" but meaning that the levels of taxing and spending are above the tolerable limits for a free society. That the scales of freedom and security are overly weighed down on the security side. That growth, enterprise, and labor is being hurt for no balanced gain, and will trend downward if current political winds hold. I have nothing against the honest man wanting to do a little more for the poor and the aged, assuming he doesn't ground it on evil white rich folks making them so and deserving to be taken down a notch. I too want an increase in wage mobility, jobs availability, and a general increase in quality of life across the board. I don't need to assume Kwark is some societal malcontent or psychopath for advancing his positions, but I've learned the same goodwill is not typically returned--with an extra heavy dose of "proof" that conservatives really want widespread pain and misery for the currently poor. That our worldview is simply reckless or negligent. I see the current proposals genuinely causing the ranks of the poor to increase, even as simultaneously the rich become less rich. Lose-lose.
I know why capitalism works and I know that it works better than any alternative that we've come up with. I simply disagree that private property is divinely inspired or the product of some mysterious natural law. Go back in time a thousand years and you have a man claiming that an entire nation, and the people living on it, are his private property due to the work his grandfather did in successfully conquering the place. Millions of people may disagree but the guy at the top is the one making the rules and he's the one defining who owns what and it turns out he owns everything. It doesn't matter that he doesn't live on the land or work the land or generate value, he owns the land and he owns anything it produces. And if you dispute that he'll have the highest moral authority in the land condemn you while the law destroys you. Three hundred years later a council of nobles decide that the one guy at the top doesn't own everything and everyone, the land and the people within the estates of the nobles are the property of the nobles, not the king, and they too have rights. Now these people still don't work the land and nor do they live on the land. These people claim that they have a right to the profits of the work done by the common people beneath them, due to birth or due to grants made by the power at the top. And again this is backed up by the force of law which happens to be a force created by the people who own the land.
Add another four hundred years and the means of production is shifting from the land to the cities and a middle class emerges. Not a middle class in the American sense where literally everyone is middle class but rather a group of people like Bill Gates who through intellect, luck and effort position themselves as new owners of the new means of production. Now these people worked hard and were talented but nobody ever said that William the Conqueror was lazy or unambitious. These middle classes form part of a widening aristocracy but their methods are no different. They control the means of production, largely through birth rather than merit, and the labour of the masses funds their lifestyles. And again the law, now decided by a Parliament voted for exclusively by these people who have limited the franchise to themselves, backs them up. Organised labour is crushed and unassailable intergenerational fortunes are built. We're now into the enlightenment and there is an awful lot written about the rules of a society and how it must work and a lot of it is quite good until you realize that it's about as cynical as the king explaining how the divine right of kings worked seven centuries previously. It's the height of imperialism and many of these people writing about the absolute rights of man actually own other men. Private property only becomes private when it becomes their property. Entire countries get seized in the name of profits, an entire people end up crushed under manifest destiny.
Now I like capitalism because it seems to work. It's a pretty efficient way to allocate labour and resources, at least as efficient as anything else we've found, and it's a good motivator and driver of innovation. And it's a good system for me because I will invariably find myself joining that aristocracy. I won a half dozen different birth lotteries, I would have had to work really hard to fuck this hand up and instead I find myself working pretty damn hard to accelerate to the top. I'm already in the capitalist class, on a good day the markets return more than I make in a week and again, that's accelerating. I like it, I just won't defend the gifts it bestows upon me as my birthright. Natural law isn't making me rich, a system built by rich hypocrites to make life great for rich hypocrites is making me rich.
And I call the system insane because it is insane. Take any of the gulf states mostly populated by migrant labourers with an elite citizen group living on the wealth of the oil. By what right is that oil wealth theirs? Did they make the oil? Did they buy the land for the price of the oil in order to exploit it? This is where "natural law" takes us. One group aristocracy, the other serfs. I don't advocate a Bolshevik takeover, those always go pretty badly, but at the same time the people on the top should not take the piss. There is a line at the bottom end of Texas and we've decided that people born on the other side of it don't get to have the same rights and the same opportunities as people on our side. And that's fine because government requires arbitrary borders but we shouldn't actually believe those people aren't really people and that American interests are more important than their interests. It's a useful fiction because it makes everything work but it's not actually true. People whose grandfathers struck oil aren't any better than their neighbours but it's a useful fiction to pretend that they deserve their wealth because we end up asking some really difficult questions about society if we don't. We can use the system without worshiping it, we can benefit from it without deluding ourselves and we should perpetually question it. Natural law is just divine right of kings rebranded because the people who wanted rights were mad their ancestor wasn't king.
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On October 27 2015 11:16 ticklishmusic wrote:On a unrelated topic, this NPR interview with Charles Koch is the closest thing I've ever heard/seen NPR give to a hatchet job.
On a related topic, I hate all these sites with their own video players.
And as something that is fun:
Project SAM (Smart Alternatives to Marijuana), an anti-pot group headed up by former Rep. Patrick Kennedy and former drug-czar adviser Kevin Sabet, has named what it considers the best and worst presidential candidates regarding marijuana policy. The group evaluated would-be presidents based on their "opposition to marijuana legalization for recreational purposes," "support for prevention, intervention, and treatment of marijuana use," and "regulated, FDA-approved approach to the legitimate medical use of marijuana components."
It should come as no surprise that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul are considered the worst of the bunch by Project SAM's killjoys. Each gets a dismal grade of D-, showing that grade inflation is alive and well even among neo-prohibitionist outfits. Sanders' bad showing is directly tied to his statement during the first Democratic debate in Nevada that he "suspect[ed]" he would vote for that state's legalization initiative. Paul, a practicing opthamologist, goes down because he thinks pot policy is a state-level issue rather than a federal matter.
IVN.usIVN.usAnd who are the folks that Project SAM really digs? Marco Rubio, who refuses to even say whether he's ever tried pot (which means that he has, doesn't it?); Chris Christie, who told the father of an epileptic child that the governor would be making the call about whether the kid could use pot, thank you very much; and Ben Carson, who recently told Glenn Beck that he aims to "intensify" the drug war, all got A grades. Carly Fiorina, who is nobody's idea of a soft-on-drugs kind of candidate, only got a B, since she has allowed that medical marijuana might have some value (as long as it is heavily regulated). And Hillary Clinton, who flat-out opposes recreational marijuana, got a B- since on this question at least she appears to believe in federalism in some half-assed way.
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I do hope that something happens with this, just so those companies in CO, WA, etc can actually have bank accounts. At the very least.
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So Danglars is correct. The "original compact" of liberal constitutionalism has indeed "been rent in half" by the fact that those other than the asset owning classes can vote.
He's just wrong to think that this is a bad thing
Entire countries get seized in the name of profits, an entire people end up crushed under manifest destiny.
Natural law is just divine right of kings rebranded because the people who wanted rights were mad their ancestor wasn't king.
Some pretty great lines on this page. I salute you.
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I think we should be clear on one thing though, no king nor tyrant has ever exercised total control of property, nor did any of them ever deprive everyone of all rights. Those rights may have only been for the select few who were deemed worthy by the king, and there may have been an implicit threat of the throne seizing all assets from some particular person or group, but societies have always demanded at least some natural rights to be protected and held by the influential class. The very basis of civilization, philosophically speaking, is the protection from anarchy. Any king who attempted to deprive literally ALL citizens of their rights would have been overthrown shortly thereafter by the combined might of the masses and of the upper class who supported the system with their wealth.
It is not as though no one had any rights at all and everyone was a complete slave to the king. Most people were probably slaves, that's true; but the people who were considered "people" usually enjoyed at least some form of privacy and autonomy concerning their own property. That this right was exclusive does not mean it was not in some ways coded into the DNA of human societies. The very purpose of social gathering and especially of governance was the protection of property. The American system is not unique in that it recognizes property rights, that is almost universal throughout history. The American system was different in that it, among few others, extended that right to all citizens (though they took a rather regressive view of who was or wasn't a citizen).
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1) Natural law discourse is not a "rebranding" of 'the divine right of kings.' In the 17th and 18th centuries political philosophers thought of law as being divided into three spheres, more or less: positive law (the law created by the civil authority), divine law (the law given by God in scripture and upheld by the Church), and natural law (mostly to do with contracts, ethics of reciprocity, right to self-preservation, and so forth).
2) Saying that "the very basis of civilization is the prevention of anarchy" is a tautology. I would counter with the suggestion that the very basis of civilization has to do primarily with the long-term storage of foodstuffs and the distribution thereof.
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Well, as I saw it the implication was that said philosophers and thinkers were invariably well off property owners. And in writing about ‘natural law’ and ‘property rights’ what they were really doing was coming up with, and justifying, a system for why they as wealthy, educated city dwellers should have more political power at the expense of the monarch or the nobility, yet their own servants should remain just that, servants.
So in hindsight it could then indeed be viewed as some form of rebranding, a reformulated justification for why some people deserve to have, and others don't.
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United States42778 Posts
On October 27 2015 12:03 Cowboy64 wrote:
I think we should be clear on one thing though, no king nor tyrant has ever exercised total control of property, nor did any of them ever deprive everyone of all rights. Those rights may have only been for the select few who were deemed worthy by the king, and there may have been an implicit threat of the throne seizing all assets from some particular person or group, but societies have always demanded at least some natural rights to be protected and held by the influential class. The very basis of civilization, philosophically speaking, is the protection from anarchy. Any king who attempted to deprive literally ALL citizens of their rights would have been overthrown shortly thereafter by the combined might of the masses and of the upper class who supported the system with their wealth.
It is not as though no one had any rights at all and everyone was a complete slave to the king. Most people were probably slaves, that's true; but the people who were considered "people" usually enjoyed at least some form of privacy and autonomy concerning their own property. That this right was exclusive does not mean it was not in some ways coded into the DNA of human societies. The very purpose of social gathering and especially of governance was the protection of property. The American system is not unique in that it recognizes property rights, that is almost universal throughout history. The American system was different in that it, among few others, extended that right to all citizens (though they took a rather regressive view of who was or wasn't a citizen).
Stalin would like a word with you about the protected class. Might I recommend you read a brilliant biography called Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar.
Game theory might imply that once you've shown you'll kill literally anyone for anything everyone bands together to stop you but unfortunately humans are bad at executing collective game theory. History stands as proof against your claim.
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United States42778 Posts
On October 27 2015 12:32 notesfromunderground wrote:
1) Natural law discourse is not a "rebranding" of 'the divine right of kings.' In the 17th and 18th centuries political philosophers thought of law as being divided into three spheres, more or less: positive law (the law created by the civil authority), divine law (the law given by God in scripture and upheld by the Church), and natural law (mostly to do with contracts, ethics of reciprocity, right to self-preservation, and so forth).
2) Saying that "the very basis of civilization is the prevention of anarchy" is a tautology. I would counter with the suggestion that the very basis of civilization has to do primarily with the long-term storage of foodstuffs and the distribution thereof.
Say divine law had, in the past, always oppressed you in favour of an elite. Say you wanted to build a new society in which you had more rights and privileges, rights and privileges not granted openly but rather reserved exclusively for people like you. How would you justify those laws if you couldn't claim they came from God and you didn't want to claim that you invented them? How would you convince a newly secular society that these laws were unimpeachable, they weren't the laws of man which can be changed, criticized or amended but rather were from an outside source that was above reproach? And remember, you're doing this during the enlightenment. This is the time of Newton and later of Darwin. Great thinkers of the time were finding truth in nature, they were decoding the movement of the planets, the mechanisms of the clockwork of the universe were being unlocked. How convenient it would be if one of the truths, springing from nature, not God, which was the new source of truth, was that your wealth should be sacrosanct.
Natural laws would be found written in spider webs. Snowflakes would naturally spell them out. You'd cut down trees and see them.
The idea of natural law as opposed to divine law is nothing more than a symptom of the environment in which the natural laws were written. It is indicative of nothing more than the zeitgeist of the great thinkers of the age. After all, if germ theory could be worked out, if the motion of the heavens could be calculated and predicted, why shouldn't there be social truths somewhere if you look hard enough to find them. Incidentally it was the same thinkers working in the exact same way that brought us eugenics, that's natural law too. It turned out that it's just pretty fun to come up with things that suit you and then claim that you didn't come up with them at all, you found them naturally occurring in nature.
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That's just not how it played out man. Go read Jean Bodin. The idea of natural law was something that had coexisted for a long time with other legal discourses. Everyone believed in natural law already, it wasn't something that was explicitly invented in order to challenge and displace an older concept of 'divine law.'
Darwin is an Enlightenment thinker? okay...
Also... "newly secular society"? I really don't know what texts you have been reading. There is no sudden break into the clear day of secular rationality. That's such a fantasy.
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On October 27 2015 13:31 notesfromunderground wrote:
That's just not how it played out man. Go read Jean Bodin. The idea of natural law was something that had coexisted for a long time with other legal discourses. Everyone believed in natural law already, it wasn't something that was explicitly invented in order to challenge and displace an older concept of 'divine law.'
Well, Locke WAS a product of his time. If you read any marxist historian out there they'll point out that his arguments were a de facto attempt to justify aspects of the enclosure movement as well as colonial practices. I don't doubt that Locke was, at least at some level, genuinely attempting to put into words what seemed to him to be a natural state of affairs, but this doesn't change the fact that he was a product of his time. I mean, just ask yourself, to whom was Locke speaking? Peasant farmers?
Edit: although I also agree, natural law was a philosophical concept that predates the enlightenment. It wasn't a cynical rebranding of divine right. But, I would agree with KwarK it occupied the same role in enlightenment times.
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EPT
