The Trouble With Libertarians

[Diogenes]

Nonsense. ALL Laws are legislated Morality. This ought to be self evident, but judging by how many people keep repeating the "You can't legislate Morality" mantra, perhaps if I make it more noticeable maybe it will sink in?
ALL LAWS ARE LEGISLATED MORALITY.

Actually, most laws are legislated ethics. They attempt to dictate what is GOOD for you (or against what is bad), not what is right/wrong It is however true that those who wish to control you (many lawyers among that group) work assiduously to confuse the two. After all, if you don't have clear language, you can't think clearly. And if you can't think clearly, you are easy to own.

But you are correct. It is nonsense to say you have the right to be immoral. Righteousness and morallity are inextricably linked. Morality IS "right and wrong" just as ethics IS "good and bad".

Absolutely wrong. Blackstone defined the law as defining the Rights and Wrongs of Commoners, of Aristocrats, and of Kings. A wrong is an act that causes harm to another individual in some way. With our revolution, we decided there was no distinction between the commoners, aristocrats, or kings, that no person had a divine right to rule over others, but we retained the principles of common law as defined by Blackstone.

Attempts to go beyond prohibitions against acts that harm others constitute unconstitutional legislation of morality.

You are talking around the point. Laws are the OFFICIAL morality. When slavery was permitted, the laws said so. When slavery was abolished, the laws changed to reflect the new condition.

Again, as always, the Laws reflect the morality of the Rulers. In other words, they are the moral opinions of those in charge. Period. End of Sentence.


All laws are legislated morality. The question is never "Whether" morality will be legislated, the question is always "Who's?"

[Diogenes]

It is however true that those who wish to control you (many lawyers among that group) work assiduously to confuse the two. After all, if you don't have clear language, you can't think clearly. And if you can't think clearly, you are easy to own.

Absolutely wrong. Blackstone defined the law as defining the Rights and Wrongs of Commoners, of Aristocrats, and of Kings.

Gee, let me see. Blackstone's Commentaries... a.k.a. "Blackstone Legal Dictionary", the basis of the legal profession in America. Might he be one of those who want the legal profession to be preemminent, to hold sway over others, to control the social interaction, to own you? Nawww, can't be. We all know those British knights would NEVER be like that!

Much of English law was rejected. Much of American law is based on Vatell's "Law of Nations."

[Diogenes]

Absolutely wrong. Blackstone defined the law as defining the Rights and Wrongs of Commoners, of Aristocrats, and of Kings.

Gee, let me see. Blackstone's Commentaries... a.k.a. "Blackstone Legal Dictionary", the basis of the legal profession in America. Might he be one of those who want the legal profession to be preemminent, to hold sway over others, to control the social interaction, to own you? Nawww, can't be. We all know those British knights would NEVER be like that!

Actually he was not. While he was considered a royalist, he also held the rulers to much higher standards as well. He was a supporter of the Glorious Revolution in Britain, and felt that a king that failed to recognise the rights of his subjects was committing treason and deserved to be hanged.

Meaning he wanted to impose his own ideas of morality on the government. And he is different from everyone else in history how?

[Diogenes]

So I say again, you can not legislate morality.

And I say again, you cannot do anything else. You are trying to peel the white from the rice, or the wet from the water. All laws are nothing but legislated morality. It is the very definition of law.

Any attempt to do so will ultimately interfere with a persons individuality.

And it does not occur to you that concern for "a person's individuality" is itself a moral opinion? You do remember that slavery was once legal, don't you? Where you are going off the rails is your assumption that everyone automatically shares YOUR version of morality, so you think YOUR version is Objective. Well it's not. It's subjective, and that's what you cannot seem to comprehend.

All laws are subjective morality imposed by those in authority.

Those who propose to do so only intend to take your individual freedoms and bend you to their own agenda. Otherwise we'd be seeing those Muslim insurgent "leaders" blowing themselves up instead of always using some underling (pawn).

Again, you are assuming everyone else in humanity accepts your concern about individual freedoms (Look up European Nobility.) which is certainly not true. You believe you are asserting an "Objective" morality, because you are blind to the fact that you are asserting your own "subjective" morality while believing it to be objective.

[bcglorf]

treating anarchy as equivalent to chaos is a big-government perpetrated lie.

So anarchy isn't really that bad, there's just a big-government conspiracy to make it sound that way?

Anarchy is defined in the English language as the absence of government. More over, within English there is no distinction of when a group of people co-operating for common cause is considered a "government".

If the warring tribes and pirates in Somalia are not considered big enough to be deemed a "government", then Somalia is what Anarchy looks like in practice. At the very best, the Utopian paradise created by individual anarchists will be invaded and destroyed by neighbors willing to organize in groups large enough to be deemed a government.

If the warring tribes and pirates are big enough to be deemed a government, then your anarchist utopia won't even survive a small family that decides to work together and take over the world, one individual at a time.

Anarchy works as well in practice as a dictatorship does, they are only nice to live in so long as the dictator and other anarchists are benevolent. History has repeatedly show us they will not be, and we have repeatedly failed to learn that.

[palladin9479]

Again, you are assuming everyone else in humanity accepts your concern about individual freedoms (Look up European Nobility.)

The European Nobility certainly did subscribe to the belief that they were free, it was all those pesky lower peasants that were not. As you can see, forcing others to abide by your will is easy to do, its forcing yourself to do theirs that is a problem. And ultimately that is where your entire argument breaks down, it requires that you take a very apathetic self-centered view of the universe. You attempt to blur the lines of morality and ethics then take that blurred line and call it false. Of course its false, you made it that way. In debate we call this a stick man argument.[/quote]

[Diogenes]

Again, you are assuming everyone else in humanity accepts your concern about individual freedoms (Look up European Nobility.)

The European Nobility certainly did subscribe to the belief that they were free, it was all those pesky lower peasants that were not. As you can see, forcing others to abide by your will is easy to do, its forcing yourself to do theirs that is a problem. And ultimately that is where your entire argument breaks down, it requires that you take a very apathetic self-centered view of the universe. You attempt to blur the lines of morality and ethics then take that blurred line and call it false. Of course its false, you made it that way. In debate we call this a stick man argument.

Well, I would like to address your points, but before I can do that, I have to understand what you are saying. Could you perhaps rephrase and provide some examples of what you are talking about?

I see nothing in your response that refutes my contention that All Laws are the Legislated Morals of those in power. (The Salient point of this discussion.)