The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Human rights: a further blow > Comments

Human rights: a further blow : Comments

By Meg Wallace, published 2/11/2011

What is it with human rights? Does anyone really want them?

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. All
The Author Meg Wallace article tries to imply that human rights are violated because; "Over half the Commonwealth countries still criminalize private adult consensual same-sex activity". She does not recognise lack of education and hygiene exposes women to AIDS and other viruses, as their husbands are involved in homosexual activity. Disease in these countries is rife; much caused by bisexual activity.

Underlying her article is an agenda for same sex marriage. She sees because over 50% of countries still criminalize homosexuality this poses a problem to her agenda. Note she uses a soft term "same sex activity", afraid to put it bluntly. Is she suggesting women cannot be involved women's sports or sewing classes? No! There is another underlying agenda which she hides in this article.

If she was a genuine and responsible advocate of human rights she would be involved in real issues like education of women in these countries.
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 7:31:57 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My own response to the question 'why do nations sign up to a convention but not put it into effect' is that signing is easy but implementing is difficult. 'Human rights' make no sense without a society conferring such rights. No baby is born with 'rights' other than those expressly conferred by law — and observed in practice. In Australia infants cannot be prosecuted in the ordinary court system, and they are entitled to go to school to be educated (indeed their parents are compelled to send them there unless there are satisfactory alternatives). Are there others?

FWIW, I would support an Australian Bill of Rights only if it had an accompanying Bill of Responsibilities. I never hear of the latter.
Posted by Don Aitkin, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 7:41:04 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A neat summary of why the Human Rights industry is such a waste of time and space.

I suggest that the author attempts the following exercise: find a randomly selected group of ordinary Australians - say, twenty - and ask them to agree on a charter of "Human Rights".

If they are able to do this - which is itself somewhat dubious - ask them then to frame the laws that would support the charter. On this level, you would without question uncover the many and varied views on what constitutes adherence to the rule of law, and what constitutes individual freedom.

If by some miracle these twenty are able to achieve an end result, contemplate for a moment what would be required to formulate the same across the entire population. And as a final brain-snapping exercise, imagine what it would take to get agreement across the many other countries and cultures that make up our world.

Which is of course why any and all attempts so far to achieve a "Bill of Rights" remain a collection of vague, meaningless and unenforceable platitudes.

There is only one possible deduction. "Human Rights" describes a method by which top-down control is exercised over the citizenry, by a self-selected group of people who think they know what is best for us. By passing laws under its heading, an industry is created for lawyers to argue, interminably, what constitutes one person's "right" when set against another person's "freedom".

Fortunately, we can be regularly put on our guard by articles like this, to remind us of the slippery slope these would-be do-gooders would like us to embark upon.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 8:14:42 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Human rights are covered by law. Abide by the laws of the land where ever in the world you are. I don't see how a written set of rules in your pocket would stand up, Forever changing, and as complicated as the tax system.
Posted by 579, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 8:29:11 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This thread is already solved- because nobody can agree on what a right is, and most perceived rights conflict with someone elses' perceived rights.
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 9:01:35 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The problem is that it’s meaningless to define human rights as whatever States say they are.

For example, obviously there can be no such thing as a human right to own slaves. And there’s no such thing as a human right to have your legitimate freedoms violated. But if legitimate freedoms are only whatever the State defines them to be, and if all the State's revenue depends on coerced human expropriations of people’s labour, how can you avoid human rights abuses?

“Ah but,” say the apologists for political power “taxation is different. It’s legal, and approved by the majority, and by tradition, and it’s necessary to provide public utilities.”

But these are nonsense arguments. For if slavery were legal, or approved by the majority and tradition, and necessary to fund public utilities – as it was in most places and times in history - that didn’t make it okay, did it? So the problem remains how to make the *ethical* distinction between coercively expropriating people’s efforts (slavery - bad) and coercively expropriating people’s efforts (taxation - good).

The starting point is not that we must preserve the existing power structure, and human rights are construed to support its continuance. It’s the other way around, else it’s meaningless.

For example, in the first paragraph, the author contradicts herself. Apparently it’s a “human right” to have your marriage criminalized, if the State arbitrarily considers it an impediment to its social engineering goals. But in the next breath, she reports “Over half the Commonwealth countries still criminalise private adult consensual same-sex activity.”

So it’s a human right to have your private consensual sexual relations criminalized if the State wants it, but not if not!

Human rights cannot be a facile grab-bag of political favours: there is no such thing as a human right to free ice-cream.

The way out of these difficulties is sound theory, as follows. The right of self-ownership is the only moral and rational foundation of all human rights, because even to deny it, one must perform a self-contradiction and thus affirm it.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 9:12:53 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I agree with others above, that Human Rights conventions are nothing more than inspirational rhetoric observed in the breach. The notion of "Universal" human rights is even more risible than domestic versions that preside over drastic inequalities especially in wealthy countries. Universal human rights suggest an ethical imprimatur (based in what?), or at least an international duty of care that transcends all borders; meanwhile the world is polarised between glut and starvation. I think we ought to stop flattering ourselves in this deadpan Monty Python manner and acknowledge that humanity is presided over in reality by the anti-ethics of obsessive self-interest and self-agrandissement, vested in a limitless ambition for the accumulation of wealth and influence. Ethics is a pretence in this context, an international form of "sublimation" whose much more prevalent honest expression should be owned-up schadenfreude.

In any case what are "Human" rights? What gives us pre-eminence over all the planet's other species? What about their rights?
We have no right to talk about Rights in general. Cant and moonshine!
Posted by Squeers, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 9:25:28 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Squeers
Then who has the right to speak for you? You? Or someone else?
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 10:14:43 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Go Meg.
There's work here for Australians United for Separation of Church and State.
Posted by Ralph Toronto, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 12:45:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ralph,
What does that vague sentence meam?
Posted by Philo, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 1:08:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"But these are nonsense arguments"
A pity Peter, I was hoping you would explain why- but you never mentioned them again, but rather insinuated they are comparable to slavery.

It's a fact of life that unless you join a libertarian sea-stead nation, or live in an isolated island that you keep to yourself, you would likely be living within a society and benefitting from the services that everybody else is paying for in some form; for them to expect every member to help subsidize it is perfectly fair.
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 2:18:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
PRIORITAS:

I am not negative to Arabian beheading

Nor live ammo against a peaceful crowd

Nor sex slave bound in brothel dim

But homosexual consider him

(above them all consider him)

The biggest crime is jim and jim!
Posted by diver dan, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 2:31:11 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
‘But these are nonsense arguments’
“A pity Peter, I was hoping you would explain why- but you never mentioned them again”

I did explain – in the very next sentence.

“but rather insinuated they are comparable to slavery”

I didn’t “insinuate” they are comparable to slavery: I showed that they both rely on the coerced taking of the fruits of someone else’s labour.

“It's a fact of life that …you would likely be living within a society and benefitting from the services that everybody else is paying for in some form; for them to expect every member to help subsidize it is perfectly fair.”

The issue is not “services that everybody is paying for in some form”, because that would confuse voluntarily-funded with coerced services.

Your argument only begs the question why I, or anyone, should be able to obtain the benefit of services that others are forced to pay for.

It is no justification to say “It is fair because it is fair”, which is all that your argument amounts to. The question is, why is it fair if no-one can show what distinguishes it from coercion which is a human rights abuse?

Besides, it’s not true that “every member” pays for tax-funded services, that’s the whole point. It’s an arrangement by which some are forced to work and pay so that others can receive without working or paying.

So since you think the ethical distinction between taxation and slavery is so obvious that it goes without say - what is it?

Squeers
You are very advanced. You advocate human rights for vegetables when you don’t admit them for human beings.

Ralph
Why is it okay for the State to force people into funding or obeying the arbitrary moral opinions of others, but not the Church?
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 5:26:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Actually Peter you didn't address why the specific 'excuses' were bad, you just started a slavery rant and implied it was the same.

"Your argument only begs the question why I, or anyone, should be able to obtain the benefit of services that others are forced to pay for."
By living within a society you already ARE benefiting from services others are paying for. That's the point Peter.
Again, unless you live off a remote plot, or are part of a libertarian SeaStead, you are benefitting from the infrastructure and the people who use it- as far as people going to work on roads, who in turn help maintain the economy, as well as virtually all the individual businesses that you benefit from directly. You are even benefiting from the comparable safety of taxpayers funding our army and police. These infrastructural assets need resources and people to manage and repair them, and that is where most infrastructural taxes go.
If you truly felt that this is unfair, then it would be hypocritical for you to be living within a taxpayer-maintained environment but not wanting to pay for it- which is exactly the kind of sponging off others you were complaining about.

Anyway, the difference between taxation and slavery is that slavery involves a person with no rights, working for no personal benefit but instead entirely the benefit of somebody else, and no right to leave. Taxpayers however are all automatically beneficiaries of the infrastructure and management in the society they voluntarily decided to live in and benefit from, with plenty of rights to either relocate to a tax-free society, or make a case as to why they aren't benefiting from the taxes and why they should be exempt.
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 5:44:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Going back onto the actual topic, it would be prudent to point out that "Human Rights" has become a dirty word in Australia.

Most often when the words have been said it has been used to justify volatile or sectarian groups more exclusive demands, or people caught on the wrong side of the law, and having their rights trumping what many 'ordinary' Australians would perceive as their own rights to safely enjoy their own environment.

The fact that 'human rights' have scarcely been heard in issues affecting the general community as opposed to all the time in the context of terrorism policy never helped the word take off.

It is sometimes heard in the Euthanasia or Abortion cases- and often just as much to deny both of these rights.

What's not to love about that word?
Posted by King Hazza, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 5:53:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Meg Wallace,

I do not know what Human Rights are but I know that the dollar in my pocket is the product of my work.

It is how that dollar is used when I pay it as tax that concerns me.

In other words; as I gracefully accept the tax officer auditing my accounts in the course of my gaining that dollar and I am daily submitted to checks in shops and trains, I feel it to be my turn to have the accounts of those in whose hands my tax-dollar has been confided, audited by a person I trust.

Verbal assurances like the ones politicians proffer at election time convince me as much as a penniless vagrant in the quest of a house-loan convinces a bank manager.

As we are pushed deeper and deeper into an asocial Corporative structure, the only right of any solidity would be that of knowing where our tax dollar goes.

But, as you know, there are laws (Privacy Laws) designed specifically to hide the destination of that dollar, hence you may as well save your breath or pen and go fishing other waters
Posted by skeptic, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 6:00:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Humans have the right to act constructively (positively) so that others (a person or a group of individuals) may benefit (indirectly). This right can not be just wishful thinking on the part on an individual. Can anything else be universally applied?
Posted by Istvan, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 6:12:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I did address why the specific 'excuses' were bad:- because all the same arguments would be rejected as absurd if slavery were used to provide infrastructure.

It’s no argument to say “Well everyone in society including slaves benefits from slaves running the water supply, so therefore slavery is justified.”

That’s reminds me of the Idi Amin theory of human rights:
“In every society there are people who have to suffer. These are just some of the people who have to suffer.”

“By living within a society you already ARE benefiting from services others are paying for.”

That’s circular, as is the argument about infrastructure. The *structure* of the argument is no different to saying that slavery is justified because slaves benefit from their own or other slaves’ labour.

The question you’re not addressing is why services should be funded under compulsion rather than voluntarily in the first place.

“ it would be hypocritical for you to be [receiving the benefit of tax-funded services while opposing coerced payment]”

Hypocritical means not practicing what you preach. I’m not arguing that people shouldn’t *receive* payments to which they’re legally entitled, nor use services that they have been forced to pay for. I’m arguing against *compulsion to pay*. Therefore there is no hypocrisy or inconsistency.

“Anyway, the difference between taxation and slavery is that slavery involves a person with no rights”

That’s factually and historically incorrect.

“working for no personal benefit…”

According to you, they receive the benefit of any infrastructure or services their labour has been expropriated to provide.

“Taxpayers however are all automatically beneficiaries of the infrastructure and management in the society …”

a) They are not automatically beneficiaries of all tax-funded services.
b) Slaves are also automatically beneficiaries of infrastructure etc. They drink the water, are protected from invasion by the army, and so on.

"Entitlement to leave” is a furphy, because the issue is whether taxation is just, so it’s no more an argument that you can leave if you don’t like it, than it is that the government can leave if they do like it.
Posted by Peter Hume, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 6:15:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
[Deleted for abuse.]
Posted by motorcyclemessiah, Wednesday, 2 November 2011 11:33:57 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A good article. A pity there are so many naysayers.

Surely human rights are the foundation of the world we would like to have; one of tolerance, individual freedom from slavery, torture, abuse or oppression, and one of compassion, freedom from hunger, the right to work, to education and to raise a family, and one of peace, security and democratic (or at least non-tyrannical) rule. An ethical and well-mannered world, where every man, woman and child can hold their head high. Where "We hold these truths to be self-evident..."

No-one said it was meant to be easy, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and it is up to the visionary statesmen (and women) of the world's nations to find the way to make it work.

If the UN is the peacekeeper, then the signatories have to comply to an established standard, and be held to account - at risk of penalties or relegation. Honey is better than vinegar of course, so aid, trade and investment should be conditional - possibly even including bonuses for outstanding performance. Why not?

Is Syria a member of the UN? Why hasn't someone in the Syrian regime been indicted for human rights abuse? Would the REAL UN PLEASE STAND UP!
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 3 November 2011 2:40:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Saltpetre,

What hope have we got for universal human rights when hegemony and self-interest stomp them into the dust?

The UN agency for science and education, UNESCO, recently voted to accept a Palestinian bid for full membership - The U.S. responded promptly to this recognition of "rights" by cutting its funding to the agency.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/31/world/meast/unesco-palestinian-membership/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 3 November 2011 7:27:06 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It's good to occasionally sight a ray of idealism in such a cynical world, Saltpetre. But you are leaning dangerously towards the Pollyanna...

>>Surely human rights are the foundation of the world we would like to have<<

You are perfectly correct, up to that point.

What is under discussion here, though, is Human Rights (the capitalization is deliberate). And the reality of codifying Human Rights into law is that we move quickly away from the motherhood "tolerance, individual freedom from slavery, torture, abuse or oppression, and one of compassion" into the murkier realms of what those words actually mean, to individuals and groups of individuals.

Tolerance, for example, is a classic. Tolerance of... what, exactly? What is tolerance for some, is deviance to others. You don't have to go far for examples - there are plenty on display in this Forum alone.

You will also find problems in making laws that cover "freedom from hunger, the right to work, to education and to raise a family". How in the name of reason can you create a "right" not to be hungry? Whom do the starving millions sue?

>>No-one said it was meant to be easy, but a line must be drawn somewhere, and it is up to the visionary statesmen (and women) of the world's nations to find the way to make it work.<<

Well, that's where it gets very contentious indeed. The only way to make it work, I think you will agree, is to enforce it. And enforcement means the empowerment of a section of the community to act as policeman over the rest of the community, under the orders of whoever has decided what those Human Rights should be.

Which brings us to Syria.

>>Is Syria a member of the UN? Why hasn't someone in the Syrian regime been indicted for human rights abuse?<<

Ok, let's say the UN indicts "someone in the Syrian regime". Would any of the charges against them require Human Rights legislation, in order to make them criminal?

Quite.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 3 November 2011 7:43:42 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Saltpetre, states have killed over 100 million people in the last century, mostly of their own subjects, oops sorry, citizens. States have been much more abusive than everyone else put together.

So it's no help at all to say that states must decide what everyone else's rights are. You can't make any progress, nor draw any line in the sand, without first recognising that states - a compulsory legal monopoly of the use of aggressive force - are intrinsically problematic.

Indeed the main human rights instruments in international law, such as the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the U.N. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, are based on earlier instruments such as the U.S. Constitution 1789, the English Bill of Rights 1689, and the Magna Carta 1215, all of which are specifically intended to LIMIT THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT. That’s where human rights law comes from. What does that tell you?

While no-one can show the *ethical* distinction between the coerced expropriation of people's labour that is slavery, and the coerced expropriation of people's labour that is taxation, it only shows how successful has been the brainwashing that regards the one as self-evidently the grossest abuse, while the other is the foundation of all that is social and just and necessary. And it just so happens that the compulsory indoctrination, oops education, of every child for ten years during their formative years is directed by the government, surprise surprise, what a coincidence.

And so the distinction is….? Still waiting for an explanation that is not circular.

Taxation and slavery are not only indistinguishable in logic, but in history the one derives from the other. After the fall of the Roman empire, the great slave estates, the latifundia, morphed into serfdoms, not because the ruling class of overlords suddenly cared about the freedom of their subjects, but because it’s more efficient, instead of owning people outright, to simply demand a portion of their output on pain of being beaten into submission or locked in a cage for non-performance. And how is that different from taxation? http://mises.org/books/the_state_oppenheimer.pdf
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 3 November 2011 10:40:45 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
With the rise of the money economy, the feudal incidents of tenure evolved into different forms of compulsory exactions based on payment in cash, instead of in kind. But what is the *ethical* distinction between them?

In ancient Rome, one third of the population were slaves. If in modern democracies, everyone is taxed one third of his product, how would that be ethically any different?

But in any event, taxation is *never* equal. It *always* involves a class of net tax payers and net tax consumers. Thus it is always an arrangement based on force by which a ruling class live at the expense of an exploited productive class. (As the income of government officials or dependants is itself from tax, any tax they pay is a mere book-keeping exercise.)
http://mises.org/Books/mespm.PDF

Modern taxation is a direct descendant of the payment of tribute by conquered peoples to their overlords, from the days when being defeated in war, your life was forfeit: - just as it will be today if you refuse to be expropriated, and defend your freedom with a use of force matching whatever the armed officials bring against you. They will start with threatening letters, but if you don’t submit and obey, they will escalate, and if you continue to defend yourself, they will shoot you dead. That’s how it works.

All revenues of all states are based on that. Their pretensions to moral superiority are false.

The fact that people know resistance is futile, and so submit, does *not* prove they consent.

Thus all talk of human rights as flowing from the determinations of states is ethical, factual, historical and logical nonsense.

The defence of taxation based on democratic theories of “contributions” - as if they were voluntary - are simply fictions made up after the fact. They cannot withstand critical scrutinty.

The definition of human rights must come, not from “might is right” which is virtually the definition of an abuse of human rights, but from the ethical and logical foundation of a right of self-ownership, which *is* universal, and cannot be denied without self-contradiction: http://mises.org/books/economicsethics.pdf
Posted by Peter Hume, Thursday, 3 November 2011 10:44:22 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Peter your hyperbole is becoming more inane every time.

So now you are saying that IF any form of service COULD hypothetically be staffed with slaves, it is no longer justified even when it actually isn't?
And again, you actually did not address the points.

But to address yours, the dichotomy of slaves vs taxpayers is a very simple situation;
Are the slaves better off if they were free?
Are the taxpayers better off if the services their taxes went to were terminated?

Arguably the first answer is yes, and the second answer is no; both would be for the slaves and taxpayers to decide, respectively.
Ignoring that that the slaves wouldn't actually have a say, we are left with the taxpayer's options. The taxpayers are faced with a choice of maintaining the service with their money, or ending it and saving the money. They are completely free, and provided plenty of options to vote it out of existence if the service is proving a burden on their quality of life, and enough people agree. But as there is no free lunch, the options are simply either you do not pay for something that no longer exists and save your money, or you indirectly benefit through the service existing, and are expected to pay upkeep. Now, the only exception is whether you can prove that the service should still exist, but is not in any way affecting your quality of life and you would like to be exempt from it.

Of course, this is harder than you think; for if you were to use a road or footpath, purchase products that were delivered by a road or footpath, or in any way acted in a way to require someone else to use a road or footpath in response, you are in fact contributing to the wear of the roads, and cannot claim that everyone else should pay for your actions contributing to the expenses of maintaining it.

Hence, why anyone who is not a hermit cannot claim they are not part of society and should not contribute to its upkeep.
Posted by King Hazza, Thursday, 3 November 2011 2:49:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Peter Hume, in Oz you have, and are guaranteed, self-ownership (try to tell me that this is not the Lucky Country and you will be howled into oblivion) - but many in this mixed-up world of ours do not. Do you care about those others and their plight, their interest in, or hope for, self-determination? Do any of we, the free and self-righteous, care enough?

As for your tirade on the criminality of taxation, what alternative would you suggest? Are we not all share-farmers in the wealth of the Blue Planet?

Agreed, that Human Rights laws and covenants are, or should be, designed to limit the powers of governments and individuals to exercise unacceptable force or mandate over the citizenry, BUT should also and equally be designed to affirm and ensure the responsibility of governments and individuals to uphold the inalienable Rights of the citizenry.

Charter of Human Rights: A Covenant in good faith to leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of world peace, to strive unerringly to overcome the source and cause of oppression in every corner of the globe; an agreed minimum startpoint, a world 10 commandments binding every individual, and every government, and enforced by every nation from within, with guaranteed separation of church and state and of freedom of the judiciary, freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Government of the people, by the people and for the people.

We need to refuse product from oppressive regimes, from child labour, from ecologically destructive or unsustainable undertakings, and offer aid in exchange for reform. There is a better way, and the world has eventually to recognise this and to embrace it.

World police force: One day it may come to this - Unless people of goodwill join together to demand justice for all; or three wise men come from the east. Each-way bet, anyone?
Posted by Saltpetre, Thursday, 3 November 2011 3:46:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Meg writes

';Where human rights are concerned, there is a global lack of honesty and accountability. Nations either accept that there are universal human rights, and what these involve (as set out, e.g. by the UN) or they don't. If they don't, they should declare this, and be transparent and accountable for their stance. '

Well I declare that UN human rights as set out by the UN are a load of tripe. Go back to what worked in Western nations and what made them great. The biblical principles that made these nations great served them a lot better than the iditioc notion of rights without responsibilities as often preached by the UN. Think about what is good for society rather than a few individuals who want to preach to the world and have their views affirmed.
Posted by runner, Thursday, 3 November 2011 3:57:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
runner,

Much of what made Western nations "great" was achieved riding on the backs of those they oppressed. Dunno what that says about the way these biblical principles were applied.....
Posted by Poirot, Thursday, 3 November 2011 5:45:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I do agree with part of the point runner makes. It does get tiring hearing about rights without responsibility. Neither should ever travel alone.
I suspect that part of the yawn reaction to much of the discussion about human rights is because the concept is so readily abused. The human rights of the thug who robs you are treated more seriously than your rights. The human rights not to be abused by a child abuser are treated as less important than the rights of serial child abusers to be released back into the community.

Human rights often seem to get touted as an excuse for protecting wrong doers than as part of the process of protecting the rest of us from those same wrong doers.

In regard to Peter's point about taxation. My gripe there is not that I'm required to contribute but that my responsibility to pay those taxes is impacted by choices I make about how much work I do and the type of work I do. It has nothing to do with my ability to earn an income, nothing to do with how much effort I need to expend to earn that income, nothing to do with how well I do or don't manage what money I earn.

There are those who for various reasons are unable to earn a reasonable income, for those I have sympathy. There are others who choose not to earn much income, I don't see any valid reason why my tax obligation should be higher than theirs on the basis of the decisions we make. They may have more free time on their hands to use the services that all our taxes, rates etc fund.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Thursday, 3 November 2011 6:43:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Saltpetre
What do you suggest as an alternative to burning your house down? Not burning your house down, right? What do you suggest as an alternative to robbery? Not-robbery right? What I suggest as an alternative to taxation is not-taxation.

Notice that no-one here has given any justification why social relations in general should not be voluntary. Force may be justified to repel aggression, but that leaves no justification for most activities of government.

“We need to refuse product from oppressive regimes, from child labour, from ecologically destructive or unsustainable undertakings”

Go ahead and refuse them, starting with your own unjust or ecologically unsustainable habits. You don’t “need” to force or threaten others to do anything.

“… and offer aid in exchange for reform”

Pay for it yourself. Other people aren’t your property, to be coerced into sacrificing their values so as to obey or fund your opinions.

Hazza
There are a number of fatal flaws in your argument as follows.

1.
You still haven’t accepted that there is any possibility of universal human rights in the first place, “because nobody can agree on what a right is”. Therefore you haven’t eliminated the possibility that slavery is okay in some circumstances; and have given reasons why it might be (rights are what the majority say they are).

So is there a universal right of self-ownership?

If so, why?

Define the right protected.

2.
If not, then who has the right to speak for you against your will?

(cont.)
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:38:01 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
3.
If you have the right to speak for you, why doesn’t this right apply equally to everyone else?

4.
If there is a universal right of self-ownership, how is this consistent with your idea that rights are what the majority says they are?

Either way you are involved in hopeless self-contradiction, and that disposes of your entire argument.

However just to show that the rest of your argument is invalid:

5.
You failed to distinguish slavery from taxation because you applied a double standard.

You ask whether slavery is justified by whether the slaves would be better off if they were free, but whether tax is justified by whether the tax-payers would be better off without the service funded by tax.

To apply the same standard to slaves as you apply to taxpayers, you would have to ask whether the slaves would be better off without water.

6.
To apply the same standard to taxpayers as you apply to slaves you’d have to ask whether the taxpayers would be better off being free not to pay the tax (and buying the service voluntarily if they wanted it).

Obviously the taxpayers consider themselves worse off paying tax, or compulsion wouldn’t be necessary.

So again you lose the argument either way.

7.
You have simply failed to consider why services should not be funded voluntarily, which is what’s in issue.

If people aren’t willing to pay voluntarily for the services they want, they have no moral right to force other people to toil under compulsion for their own benefit, pleading how beneficial to their victims it is. This resolves both the ethical question of distinguishing slavery from taxation, and the utilitarian question about which services should be provided.

On the other hand, just because a service is provided by compulsion, doesn’t mean that that’s the only way to provide it, nor that it’s better funded that way, nor even that the state provides it passably well.

Thus again your argument is completely invalid from start to finish.
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:40:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
8.
You still haven’t explained why threatening to lock people in a cage is good or just as a basis of social action in the first place, and therefore you haven’t shown ethical reason why any given service should be provided by government.

9.
Your argument as to infrastructure provides no justification of government services that are not infrastructure.

10.
You don’t define how infrastructure is distinguished from other capital goods not to be provided by government.

How?

11.
> “Are the slaves better off if they were free?
> Are the taxpayers better off if the services their taxes went to were terminated?”
> Both would be for the slaves and taxpayers to decide, respectively.”

How can you say the decision whether slaves would be better off being free, is “for the slaves to decide”? It’s not for the slaves to decide, that’s the whole point!

> “Ignoring that that the slaves wouldn't actually have a say…”?
How can you ignore that? That’s what the bloody issue is!

So it’s either moral nonsense, or….

“The taxpayers are faced with a choice of maintaining the service with their money, or ending it and saving the money.”

It is just as illegitimate to confuse a taxpayer with the whole electorate, as it would be to confuse a slave with the whole society of which he is a part. You’re ignoring the fact that taxation intrinsically sets up two different classes – net tax-payers and net-tax consumers – which must be distinguished to resolve the moral issues, in exactly the same way as, under slavery, the slaves must be ethically distinguished from those who consume their coerced product.

Even if the whole society, slaves and non-slaves, were to vote on whether to approve slavery, and the majority vote went against the slaves, would that make slavery okay, would it?

Again, even if only the slaves voted, and a majority voted for slavery, are you saying that that would justify enslaving the minority of slaves who voted against it? It's ridiculous moral confusion.

So ... how is that different from taxation?
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:44:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
12.
You repeat the furphy about tax being voluntary contributions, which is simply false, both in fact and law. Taxes are a compulsory exaction by definition.

Repeating errors and fallacies doesn’t make them true.

13.
“… hyperbole … inane ...”

Fallacious; irrelevant.

14.
“So now you are saying that IF any form of service COULD hypothetically be staffed with slaves, it is no longer justified even when it actually isn't?”

Dishonestly misrepresenting me makes your argument worse, not better.

The problem is not that I don’t understand the difference between taxation and slavery, it’s that you can’t distinguish the relevant similarities.

15.
It is no answer to say everyone who doesn’t like it can quit society. People are not just a herd of chattels belonging to the most aggressive party, which is all your argument amounts to.

16.
“And again, you actually did not address the points.”

I addressed all the points, and you are lying in suggesting I didn’t; else name them.

Meg
Notice how the argument that human rights are what states define them as, just keeps degenerating into “might is right”, and cannot be maintained without reliance on a welter of fallacies?

But when you think about it, how could it be otherwise? How could it not be problematic for states – of all institutions the most notoriously belligerent and homicidal – to be presumptively selfless and competent and good to administer human rights and ethical standards? It’s a laughable proposition. As for the UN, it’s only an association of these problematic associations, even less accountable than its member states – all we need to know about the UN is that they appointed Gadaffi as their chair of human rights!

Political states in their very nature are based on double standards and the violation of the foundational human right from which all others follow. Any discussion of human rights by states can only involve moral and intellectual confusion which your article critiques, but does not escape.

The only way to defend any meaningful sense of human rights is by a radical critique of the state.
Posted by Peter Hume, Saturday, 5 November 2011 3:49:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well, Peter Hume, you have given us much to chew on, though we'd rather not.

In your perfect world the populace as a whole would determine the kind of world they would like to have, and how it should be paid for. You could have pay as you go, paying to travel on public transport, for going to public school or public hospital, but these would still be established and run from the public purse. Alternatively, you could rely on the private sector, in which case those in the bush would have very little. Either way the means (money in our archaic system) has to come from somewhere - from private sector industry, gouging the workers to make the profits to invest only in profitable services; or you have a lot of public infrastructure and workers with reasonable pay, and both business and workers contributing to the public purse. Or you could live off the land in the bush - but there ain't much of that left anyway.

So, you would like to live in security, with good services, and plenty of good well paying work. You will need a vibrant industrial society, a capable police service, and capable defence force so you are secure and nobody is going to come in and take it all away from you.

As for slavery, it has been outlawed - still happens in some areas, but is still against the law. (Or do you want to do away with laws, police, judiciary and legal services too?)

To have a vibrant society all should contribute in some way - either voluntary labour or monetary contribution. Everyone pays for education, even those who don't have children, because everyone's future lifestyle depends on the youth coming through. Everyone pays for services to be established, as being in the common interest.

Your world of non-tax is a pipe-dream, non-government is called anarchy, everyting for free is called communism, and it's free in name only. Would you be willing to give up your rights and freedoms, and if so, for what?
Posted by Saltpetre, Saturday, 5 November 2011 6:29:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hume it truly amazes me how silly you are willing to go to TRY to make a strawman.

Even to go so far as to insinuate I would support slavery because I point out that there is no such thing as a universal right.

Simply put, a right is something a single society regards as a basic legally-enforced entitlement of all people; with different societies having different ideas of what a 'right' is, and which rights take higher precedence than others.

Now, you try to avoid the point of my last post, and that is this;

A Public service is exactly like a corporation, where citizenship = shareholder status. If the shareholders feel the service is not justified to exist and drain company resources, they can vote to get rid of it. There are no 'classes'- every shareholder has an equal say, equally stands to benefit by that service being there, and an equal obligation to pay its upkeep if they chose to retain it, and equally stand to convince everyone else why it should stay or go;

The very reason it's not voluntary to NOT pay for it (as it currently exists) without a majority vote is specifically to AVERT the creation of a class of spongers (the very thing you were afraid of)- people enjoying and mooching off the services, but not helping to maintain them.

Your right to not pay taxes for the services you are enjoying is as strong as your right to break any other law because you personally don't feel like it.

Again, so long as you insist on being a part of society, and have yet to convince anyone why you are not a beneficiary to be exempt from paying taxes, you have no case.
Posted by King Hazza, Saturday, 5 November 2011 7:23:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hazza
You haven’t answered the numbered questions which disprove you, because you know you’ll display that they disprove you.

As for your latest repetition of the fallacies I have repeatedly disproved, unfortunately repeating falsehoods doesn’t make them true. Society isn’t a decision-making entity. The state isn’t society. Society isn’t the state. People aren’t state property.

“Simply put, a right is something a single society regards as a basic legally-enforced entitlement of all people; with different societies having different ideas of what a 'right' is, and which rights take higher precedence than others.”

And the way you judge whether “a society” recognizes a right is whether *the state* does? So in other words, there is no such thing as a universal right to be free of slavery. Rights are whatever states say they are. Thank you for openly conceding your complete moral bankruptcy, and moral disqualification to participate in a discussion about human rights.

Anyway lots of rights are not an entitlement of “all people”, e.g. the dole, the pension, the tax-free threshold, workers compensation, refugee status, so even in your own terms, your definition is completely wrong.

“Even to go so far as to insinuate I would support slavery because I point out that there is no such thing as a universal right.”

But hang on. You have no objection on ethical principle if “a society” regards holding slaves as a “right”. Well? Societies have regarded slave-holding as a right in many more places and times than not. I keep asking you on what principle you hold against it. And you keep not answering, or confirming that you agree with their theory of human rights! So don’t complain against me when I point it out!

“A Public service is exactly like a corporation, where citizenship = shareholder status.”
A corporation’s revenues are paid *voluntarily*; a public – (translation: government) service’s revenues are from tax – *involuntarily*. A shareholder has voting rights in proportion to his capital contribution; a voter has an equal right regardless of his capital contribution. A shareholder can sell his share; a voter cannot.

(cont.)
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 6 November 2011 7:58:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Therefore your argument is factually wrong, your train of reasoning collapses into confusion and fallacies, and you have lost the argument – again.

Your argument about spongers is absurd. If you don’t want spongers, stop bullying people into providing services to people who haven’t paid for them!

Saltpetre
I think you need to deal with the issues on their merits.

“In your perfect world …
We’re not talking about “my perfect world”, any more than we are about yours.

I have asked whether anyone can show an *ethical* distinction between the coerced expropriation of someone’s efforts that is slavery, and the coerced expropriation of someone’s efforts that is taxation, and no-one, including you, has been able to do it.

“… the populace as a whole would determine the kind of world they would like to have, and how it should be paid for.””

No, that’s not what I’m saying and I never said that.

I’m saying that states are intrinsically compromised and incompetent to determine what is and is not a human right. And I said there is no reason, either as a matter of ethics or pragmatics, why voluntary relations should not be preferred to coerced relations (except force needed to repel aggression).

Nothing you have said has addressed either issue.

“You could have pay as you go … but these would still be established and run from the public purse.”

That seems confused. Tax is obtained by threatening to lock you in a cage. If social relations were voluntary, what do you mean by “public” transport, purse etc.?

“Alternatively, you could rely on the private sector, in which case those in the bush would have very little.”

How do you know they would?
If it’s true, why shouldn’t they?
Is that your main objection to voluntary relations?
How do you know they wouldn’t have more?
If that’s true, why shouldn’t they?

It’s no use saying “contributions” are necessary, because that’s not in issue. The issue is whether they should be coerced or voluntary.
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 6 November 2011 8:00:46 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It’s no use saying slavery is illegal. It’s only illegal because - after long ages in which it was considered necessary and normal – people realized it’s immoral to take the fruits of someone’s labour by threatening them with physical violence. So how is that different from taxation? Until you can show how you distinguish them, you’re only assuming what is in issue, which is, whether any services should be provided by tax and why?

“Your world of non-tax is a pipe-dream”

You are confusing the ethical with the practical issues. Even if a world without murder or robbery were only a pipe dream, that doesn’t provide an ethical justification of them, does it?

There was a time, not so long ago, when people said a world without slavery is a pipe-dream. If a world without tax is a pipe-dream, it’s only because of the prevalence of the *idea* that tax is morally and practically good. I’m asking you to show how and why. And you’re not doing it. When you can’t provide an ethical or rational defence of your ideas, the ethical and rational thing to do is RE-THINK them.

If your idea is true that the private sector represents gouging and exploitation, and the coercive sector represents caring and sharing, then why not just make everyone’s tax rate 100% and have government provide all services whatsoever?

No? Then by what rational *principle* do you decide that a particular service should be provided by government, and what by private?

We have a Department of Industrial Relations to administer employment relations. Why not a Department of Social Relations to administer friendships – make sure there’s no exploitation or inequality going on. And why not a Department of Sexual Relations to administer all those girlfriend/boyfriend relationships? They could be exploitative and unequal too, couldn’t they? Government supplies water – why not food?

It’s a reductio ad absurdum, but the absurdity is in your line of reasoning, not mine.

(cont.)
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 6 November 2011 8:03:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
All your argument amounts to, is re-asserting fallacies I have just disproved with Hazza, namely that just because government does provide a service, therefore
a) it should
b) it provides it better than anyone else could
c) the service could not or would not be provided without government even if people wanted it
d) if people don’t want it, they should be forced to pay for it anyway
e) the use of coercion as a means to an end is ethically justified.

All these are false.

If you had said to the ancient Romans perhaps slavery should be done away with, they would have said “What? Are you mad? Don’t you understand that slaves supply us with public utilities necessary to a civilized society! Do you expect us all to die of thirst?”

And that is really no different to your argument about tax, is it?

Meg
Notice how any discussion of the validity of state determination of the existence of human rights, cannot but descend into a discussion of the validity, in human rights terms, of the existence of states themselves?

There is no way around it. Any intellectually honest attempt to resolve the problem must critically examine the validity of the claims of the state in its own terms, as to which, I pray you will consider reflecting on:
"The State" by Oppenheimer: http://mises.org/books/the_state_oppenheimer.pdf
and
"The Ethics and Economics of Private Property" by Hoppe:
http://mises.org/books/economicsethics.pdf
Posted by Peter Hume, Sunday, 6 November 2011 8:12:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Peter Hume, you have convinced me that by virtue of taxation we are all in effect "slaves" of the state, in that we are required to contribute a portion of the fruits of our labours to the state machine, for the state to use as it sees fit, hopefully in the common interest. The rather limited influence we have over the use to which those tax funds are put, is via the ballot box. Imperfect, but not necessarily unreasonable.

The first assumption is the necessity of having a "state" in the first place, and this is based on the need for human communities to have an effective means to maintain order, whether this is via tribal elders, potentates or some form of elected or hereditary rulers or "government". Democracy is the model we have embraced as the best available so far.

The human animal being as it is, without effective order we find ourselves at best muddling along and being heavily reliant on relatives or wontoks whenever we have a problem, and at worst preyed upon by bandits, militia, invaders or oppressors. The strong will always take advantage of the weak, unless there is imposed control and restraint. Haven't you realised the human animal is an inherently nasty critter?

Also, without cooperation and the organisation of labour, innovation and development becomes almost impossible, and without order and established reliability and integrity, cross border trade becomes risky and difficult. Order means control by some authority, elected or otherwise.

Experience has shown that cooperation and sharing provides the best means for societies to gain advancement and "civilisation", and all that this entails. Experience has also shown that when development and services are controlled by a ruling class, the wealthy or aristocracy (ie Capital), the lot of the working class and the poor is pretty terrible. Hence the need for a public sector.
TBC>
Posted by Saltpetre, Monday, 7 November 2011 2:51:32 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Cont'd:
You proposed: "c) the service could not or would not be provided without government even if people wanted it"

How many examples of just such situations do you need? You question whether those in the bush would be worse off without the provision of public funded or subsidised services. Are you for real? More generally, how would you compare our health services provision with that in the U.S.?

Private Capital vs Public Institutions? Have you noticed the widening gap betweeen the 1% and the 99%? What do you think accounts for this, and what do you think would happen if everything was controlled by private equity?

I think we should be happy to pay reasonable taxes, as long as we are getting reasonable value for money.

The big difference between slaves and the rest of us is that slaves are locked up all the time, and without any rights, but we are locked up only if convicted of a crime, and we have the benefit of legal rights to enable us even to get away with it. Is that enough of a difference? Coercion = without rights or redress.
Posted by Saltpetre, Monday, 7 November 2011 2:51:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi Meg,

The question of human rights is exposed when juxtaposed with the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. Religious laws extend only to all believers with the intention that the religion will be extended by followers. Worshiping the same gods at one time would have been a way to provide unifying guidelines beyond the boundaries of ethnic or tribal groups without understanding a finite relevance for some of those guidelines. Human rights are supposed to apply equally to all who are human, demanding that those who adhere to "Human Rights" as a recognised legal construct, recognise the common humanity of those they share this world with.
Using religion or geography to provide context for "Human rights" only divides people saying that this law applies only to these people, having the same effects as the religious law that it preserves. By appropriating the language of human rights to excuse the social stasis of an overtly religious society, no progress is made in the areas that the UN charter on human rights seeks to address.
Posted by JoberSudge, Monday, 7 November 2011 6:01:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
JoberSudge
“Human rights are supposed to apply equally to all who are human…”

Bingo. That’s it in a nutshell, because if the mores embraced are not universal, then they’re not an ethical standard, they’re an unethical standard, by which some claim unilaterally to impose forced obligations on others while claming privileged exemption for themselves.

“By appropriating the language of human rights to excuse the social stasis of an overtly religious society, no progress is made in the areas that the UN charter on human rights seeks to address.”

Yes but that of course only begs the question of the moral standing of the UN (thigh-slap of hilarity). Why should the UN – of all people – be presuming to “seek” to “make progress” in telling everyone else what standards to adhere to, when the UN itself is constituted by the worst abusers of human rights in the history of the world!

Saltpetre
“The big difference between slaves and the rest of us is that slaves are locked up all the time, and without any rights…”

That’s not actually correct. For example in ancient Rome, one-third of the population were slaves. Yet they weren’t locked up, or walking around in manacles. If the system is set up right (from the point of view of the exploiters) they don’t need to be. Slaves had rights. Some had high status. For example Greek culture was much admired, and it was trendy to have an educated Greek (slave) to serve as your children’s tutor. Rome had no administrative bureaucracy; the administration of the state was mainly done by the slaves that were the Emperor’s personal property. Many of these were highly educated men in very high positions. No doubt many enjoyed their work.

But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that it’s morally repugnant for one person or party to take the benefit of another’s work by threatening to beat them into submission. And we can say this is a universal human right, not a cultural contingency, because *everyone* in participating in the discussion,

(cont.)
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 7 November 2011 8:34:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
… implicitly asserts the right of self-ownership of himself in order to speak. It’s either a universal human right, or it’s a double standard and an abuse: there’s no other logical possibility.

You concede the ethics, but continue to hold a flame for state coercion, as being better at providing practical outcomes. But is it true? This question, to make sense, cannot just refer to making things better for one exploiting class at the expense of an exploited class. To be rational, it must refer to the evaluations of *all* the people involved, else we’re back to the ethical problem.

“Have you noticed the widening gap betweeen the 1% and the 99%? What do you think accounts for this…”

Well the governments taking trillions of dollars from the 99% and handing it to the 1% in the form of big corporations and billionaire bankers, can’t help can it?

But then, why would we *not* expect that the state would always be abused to serve the powerful at the expense of everyone else, when we consider that the state is a compulsory monopoly of the use of aggressive violence by the most powerful party against everyone else? What else would we expect?

On the other hand, in the absence of forced redistributions, the only way the rich can get money is by providing services that the 99% *voluntarily* pay for because they value them more than they value the money they pay. This must be both ethically and pragmatically superior to forcing them to pay for services that they don’t want.

“Are you for real?” Yes. You can’t just *assume* that government subsidies make people in the bush better off on balance without taking into account how restrictions make them worse off. For example much farming is basically a criminal activity nowadays.

“what do you think would happen if everything was controlled by private equity?”
I think there would be far fewer wars. Vast treasure now being utterly wasted in futile armed attacks against peaceful society such as the war on drugs, and war on Afghanistan…

(cont.)
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 7 November 2011 8:44:57 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
… would be available. I think counterfeiting money would be a criminal offence, instead of “monetary policy”. There would be much greater economic stability, because the greedy booms and depressing busts are a result of fractional reserve banking, which is a result of government ripping off the population by permitting banks to make unbacked loans which would be illegal on a free market. I think there would be a steady compounding of wealth and falling of prices. There would be much greater personal freedom to move between occupations now strangled by red tape. The living standards of everyone *especially the poorest* would gradually compound. There would be far more money available for truly social purposes including charitable trusts, arts, true science, instead of bloated dysfunctional bureaucracies spreading waste, division and chaos. I think there would be a fall in the breakdown of family and marriage. There would be less environmental destruction, by far the main vector of which is the tragedy of the commons.

“I think we should be happy to pay reasonable taxes, as long as we are getting reasonable value for money.”
a) Obviously if we were happy to pay them, no tax would be necessary.
b) When services are funded under coercion, there is no way of *knowing* what is reasonable.

It is true that there is a need for order, and to prevent the strong from taking advantage of the weak. But that is hardly served by giving the strongest party – the state - a compulsory monopoly of unprovoked aggression to kill, steal, cheat, and lie, is it? Yet what are taxation and jurisdiction but a claim of such a double standard? Only instead of “murder”, they call it “execution. Instead of “mass murder”, they call it “defence policy”. Instead of “stealing” they call it “monetary policy”. And so on.

If the original problem is that there would be anarchy unless people had an authority over them, then obviously states are in that anarchic condition in their relations with each other. In the last century they killed more than 100 million people.
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 7 November 2011 8:50:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So obviously forcing everyone to fund the far greater scale and aggression of modern states is worse, not better than the original problem. Australia is currently involved in two wars, both against countries that never attacked nor ever offered to attack us. We're being forced to pay for killings over there. Democracy is not better than freedom.

In fact most of the order in society comes - and must necessarily come - from social forces *against* unprovoked aggression. In other words, we have as much social order as we do *despite*, not *because of* the state. The wars, the inflation, the corruption, the privilege, the monopolies, the fiat money, the debt, the riots, the predominance of big corporations grown fat on the public purse, the tragedy of the commons… these are the signs of the state in our times.

“Order means control by some authority, elected or otherwise.”
No it doesn’t. It overwhelmingly comes from freedom, not from control by some authority. For example, the order in human language does not come from a government Department of Language. Similarly, the order that is in music, in art, in science, in morality, the family, these are overwhelmingly the spontaneous products of *freedom*, not of control by a coercive authority.

And it’s the same with the economy. The main effect of the government on the economy is to spread *disorder* and *injustice* - instability, capital consumption, legalized theft, poverty, privilege – literally killing and impoverishing people by the millions.

The problem is that when we see, for example, the deaths of innocent people in Afghanistan, or Bernie Fraser lowering interest rates, or people going hungry in India because government diverted capital into wasteful boondoggles like the pink batts – we don’t identify these as *crimes*.

But if we set aside the double standard, and merely judged the state by the same standards rightly applied against anyone else’s aggression or fraud, we would see that the state is, by definition, a *legal monopoly of crime*.

The idea that it produces net benefits is just Stockholm Syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome
Posted by Peter Hume, Monday, 7 November 2011 8:56:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
If there is any pretense of human rights then the people could see that every one has at least some .Well at least every one who doesn't take drugs because drug takers are a slave species deliberately banned from political office so they have no political representation like blacks in America had no political representation till 1964 .The D.E.A DESIGNED ITS DRUG LAWS TO IMPOSE SLAVERY ON THESE PEOPLE KNOWING THE WERE POWERLESS TO STOP THEM.Now every government takes its orders from these racist anti life crusaders .I for one think the whole matter of drug laws based on the myth that the state owns the bodies and minds of all it controls is badly flawed in fact I am in court to challenge this on 1 DECEMBER AT PARRAMATTA I WILL NEVER BOW DOWN TO THE STATE ON THE SUBJECT OF MY OWNERSHIP IF I AM OWNED BY ANY ONE ONLY GOD CAN CLAIM THAT OWNERSHIP . We will be treat like xxxx by compulsive liars in government pretending they own us for as long as you insipid stupid sheep let them get away with it so if I lose my freedom fighting for yours and you sit back watch and do nothing when the government invites you to a barbecue I WILL BRING THE MINT SAUCE AS YOU GO LIKE PATHETIC LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER .ALL GOVERNMENTS HAVE DECIDED THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE ON THE PLANET FOR THEIR GREEDY FOSSIL FUEL LIFESTYLES .SO THEY WILL MAKE LESS CONSUMERS SOON .BUT ONLY IF WE LET THEM PRETEND WE ARE THEIR PROPERTY ,AS WE THEN ACQUIESCE TO THAT DECISION .WE AT THE JUNKIES AGAINST CRIME HAVE ALREADY MADE THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT ACQUIESCE TO US HAVING OUR OWN GOVERNMENT BY TELLING THEM ON OUR WEB SITE WE WOULD NO LONGER BE GOVERNED BY THEM IF THE REFUSED TO NEGOTIATE WITH US. WE HAVE BEEN IGNORED AND GAINED OUR FREEDOM FROM IT .So if your sick of the old join us at the new plus we do a 10% discount on the old governments tax rate .regards the motorcycle messiah
Posted by motorcyclemessiah, Thursday, 10 November 2011 11:24:31 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy